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how to clear history in safari

To clear history in Safari, you use Safari’s own menus on Mac or the Settings app on iPhone/iPad, and you can choose whether to erase just recent activity or everything. Doing this regularly helps keep your browsing more private and can fix some loading or performance issues.

On iPhone or iPad

Use this when you want to clear history, cache, and cookies together.

  1. Open the Settings app.
  1. Scroll down and tap Safari.
  1. Tap Clear History and Website Data.
  1. Confirm when asked; your history, cache, and cookies will be deleted for the chosen time range.

If you only want to remove website data (like cookies and storage) more deeply:

  1. Go to Settings > Safari > Advanced > Website Data.
  1. Tap Remove All Website Data , then confirm.

If the Clear History and Website Data button is greyed out, Screen Time or content restrictions may be blocking changes, so you need to adjust those first.

On Mac (Safari app)

For a quick full-history clear on Mac:

  1. Open Safari on your Mac.
  1. In the menu bar, click History (or the Safari menu, depending on version).
  1. Select Clear History….
  1. In the pop‑up, choose the timeframe (for example: Last hour , Today , Today and yesterday , or All history).
  1. Click Clear History to confirm.

This removes your list of visited pages and related browsing data for that period.

Keep cookies but clear history (Mac tip)

If you want to clear history but keep website data like logins and cookies:

  • In Safari, open the History menu, then use the options to select and delete only history entries.
  • On some setups, holding the Option key when choosing the clear option changes it to “Clear History and keep Website Data,” letting you remove just history while leaving cookies.

Clear individual items instead of everything

Sometimes you only want to delete a few specific sites.

  • On Mac:
    • Open History in Safari, select specific entries, and press Delete to remove just those visits.
  • On iPhone/iPad (recent iOS):
    • In Safari, open Bookmarks/History , select websites, and delete only those entries.

Quick notes and best practices

  • Clearing “All history” is best before selling or lending your device, or after using a shared device.
  • Deleting history does not remove saved AutoFill information like contacts or passwords; those are managed separately in Passwords and iCloud Keychain.
  • Doing this once in a while can also fix strange website behavior caused by old cached files and cookies.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.