How to Clear Safari Browsing History on macOS Big Sur

You can remove all records on which Safari has browsed for a period of time. If your Mac and other computers are switched on by Safari in iCloud settings, the history of your browsing will be deleted. The removal of your Safari browsing history would not clear any browsing history that the websites you visited hold separately. So, in this post, you are going to learn how to clear the Safari browsing history without clearing the cache and other web data on your Mac.

Furthermore, The Safari browser has a secret history clearing feature that allows Mac users to clear their Safari web browser history while retaining other website information and website cookies for the same amount of time. In other words, this may be used to delete the web browsing history of visiting specific websites, while retaining the username and other cookie information of the web pages accessed. This is a valuable option, in comparison to Safari’s default browser history clearing option for Mac OS, which clears all web history and also removes website data and cookies.

How to Clear Safari Browsing History on macOS Big Sur

It is good practice to Clear Safari Browsing History on Mac, as it can help protect your privacy from anyone that is trying to discover your browsing patterns and the websites that you visit. You will find below the steps to Clear Safari Browsing History on Mac.

Without further delay, here’s how to clear Safari browsing history in macOS Big Sur:

Step 1. Open the Safari app.

Step 2. Now, hold down the OPTION key and then click the Safari menu, you’ll see Clear History and Keep Website Data instead of Clear History. Select Clear History and Keep Website Data.

Step 3. At the Clearing will only remove browsing history, but will keep other web browsing data window,  choose from clearing the last hour, today, today and yesterday, or all history.

Step 4. Click on the Clear History button. Just as described, the web history will be cleared out from Safari on the Mac, but the cookies will remain intact from that time period.

This is a less in-depth alternative to clear all of Safari’s history and all of Safari’s page data for Mac, but it could be preferable in certain cases where the user would want to clear Safari’s clearly accessible browser history, while also retaining cookies and saving data for those pages accessed during the timeframe. Separately, you may want to clear up recent searches made in Safari that pop up in the URL bar as well, or whether you might delete a particular cookie, but not all of them from the previous browsing session.

When you clear your history, Safari removes data it saves as a result of your browsing, including:

• History of webpages you visited
• The back and forward list for open webpages
• Frequently visited site list
• Recent searches
• Icons for webpages
• Snapshots saved for open webpages
• List of items you downloaded (downloaded files aren’t removed)
• Websites added for Quick Website Search
• Websites that asked to use your location
• Websites that asked to send you notifications

Wrapping Up

That’s it. This was the easiest way to clear Safari browsing history on macOS Big Sur while keeping cache and other web data.

Read More:

• How to Check & View macOS Big Sur Storage

• How to Add & Customize Widgets on macOS Big Sur

• How to Clear Cache on a Mac (Catalina & Big Sur)

• Top Features of the new Safari 14