Delete your internet history in Mac or iOS
You can delete all of your web browsing history or specific entries on both the macOS and the iOS versions of Safari. This will also delete its cookies and cache. This can come in handy if you're on a public computer, or if you need to remove a certain website from your browsing history. Here's how to clear history in Safari using your Mac, iPhone, or iPad.
Removing Safari Browser History
To clear Safari history on a Mac, click History at the top and select Clear History . Select all history , and then click Clear History . On iPhone or iPad, open the Settings app and select Safari. Tap Clear History and Website Data and select All history .
Steps
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1Open Safari. You can quickly delete all of your browsing history using this method. If you want to delete a single entry, see the next section instead.
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2Click History . You can find this in the top toolbar. [1] X Research source
- If you're using an older version of Safari or Mac, you may need to click Safari instead.
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3Click Clear History… . This is at the bottom of the drop-down menu. A pop-up menu will open.
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Click the drop-down menu and select all history . If you'd rather delete all history within a certain time frame, select the last hour , today , or today and yesterday instead.
- Deleting your history will also delete your cookies, cache , and other website data.
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Click Clear History to confirm. All of the history, cookies, searches, and other data from the range you selected will be deleted.
- Note that this will delete history across all devices connected to your iCloud account if Safari is synced.
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1Open Safari. Use this method to delete select websites from your history.
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Click History . This is the tab in the top toolbar. A drop-down menu will open.
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Click Show All History . This is the option at the top.
- You can also press CMD + Y to open this window.
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Find the entry that you want to delete. You can use the search bar in the upper-right corner, or expand the dates to browse through all your entries.
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Right-click on the entry you want to remove and select Delete . If you have a single-button mouse or trackpad, hold Control and click to open the menu. Repeat for any additional entries you want to remove.
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Open the Settings app. If you want to delete all of your browsing history, you'll need to do it from the Settings app instead of Safari.
- If you want to delete a single entry, skip to the next section .
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3Tap Safari . You'll see this in the list of apps.
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4Scroll down and tap Clear History and Website Data . This is near the bottom of the page.
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5Select All history . If you'd rather delete all history within a certain time frame, select Last hour , Today , or Today and yesterday .
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6Tap Clear History . This is the red button. All of your history, cookies, and other browsing information will be deleted.
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Open the Safari app on your device. If you just want to get rid of a couple of entries, you can delete individual history entries from within the Safari app.
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Tap the "Bookmarks" button at the bottom of the screen. It looks like an open book.
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Select "History" from the Bookmarks menu. This is the tab with the clock icon. You may already be on this tab.
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Find the history entry that you want to remove and swipe it to the left. This will reveal the "Delete" button.
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Tap Delete to remove the entry. Repeat this for any other history entries you want to delete.
- When you're finished, tap Done in the top-right corner.
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Expert Q&A
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QuestionDoes clearing Safari history free up storage?Luigi Oppido is the Owner and Operator of Pleasure Point Computers in Santa Cruz, California. Luigi has over 25 years of experience in general computer repair, data recovery, virus removal, and upgrades. He is also the host of the Computer Man Show! broadcasted on KSQD covering central California for over two years.Sure it does, but less than people think. Browsing history does not take up a lot of space. This was important back in the day, where hard drive storage was scarce, but not anymore. Cleaning the history is only a matter of personal preference or security, when you're using a shared or public computer.
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QuestionWhy is my clear button gray?Community AnswerYou may have Parental Controls on a setting where you are unable to do that. Your parents will have to unlock that feature in System Preferences.
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