Clear Cache, Cookies and History on Safari

Updated at: May 23, 2024

Here are instructions to help you clear your browsing history, cookies & cache in Safari on macOS.

There's a few guides here, what would you like to do:

• Clear the entire Cache, Cookies, and History in Safari on macOS
• Clear the Cache, Cookies, and Local Storage Data (but not the history) in Safari on macOS
• Clear saved Form Data and Passwords

Clear the entire Cache, Cookies, and History in Safari

1. Click the "Safari" menu

   Make sure you have a Safari window open and active; you will see the "Safari" menu in the top left of your screen. Click it and it will expand to show Safari specific options.

   

2. Click the "Clear History..." item

   Now that you have expanded the Safari menu, you will see the Clear History... item - click on it.

   

3. Choose the time range to delete and then "Clear History"

   Safari now gives you a very simple interface for clearing your browsing cache, history, and cookies. When you click Clear History your cache, browser history, and cookies will be deleted for the specified time range.

   

   If you choose the default option of "all history" then the entire historical record of your browsing on this computer will be deleted. At the top of the prompt, you'll see "Clear: all history" - you can click on this Select field and choose a time range to clear instead.

   So instead of deleting all your history, you can choose to just delete Today's browsing history, or just the past hour's history.

   Once you have decided how much you want to delete, click the Clear History button.

   Congratulations, you have now cleared your selected browsing data from your computer. You can simply close this window and continue to use Safari.

Clear the Cache, Cookies, and Local Storage Data in Safari

These steps will remove Safari's automatic cache of temporary data it has stored while you browse the internet; these steps won't delete your browsing history.

1. Click the "Safari" menu

   Make sure you have a Safari window open and active; you will see the "Safari" menu in the top left of your screen. Click it and it will expand to show Safari specific options.

   

2. Click the "Preferences" menu item

   Now that you have expanded the Safari menu, you will see the Preferences item - click on it.

   

   The Safari Preferences screen will now appear.

3. Click the "Privacy" tab

   The Safari Preferences screen has a number of sections, indicated by the various options along the top of the screen (General/Tabs/AutoFill etc). Click the Privacy item to see privacy related options.

   

4. Click "Manage Website Data...

   On the privacy tab, click the Manage Website Data button to show a list of all the sites Safari has collected data for.

   

5. Select the site/s you want to delete data from, and click "Remove"

   On this screen you will see a list of all the domains Safari has collected data for. Find the ones you want to remove (you can search for a domain in the Search field in the top right of the window.

   

   Delete one page from Safari's Cache

   If you just want to delete the cache and cookies from one website, you can select the domain name here and press the Remove button. This will keep all the other data intact and just remove the one site's cookies and cache.

   You can remove sites one at a time, you can hold down the ⌘ Command button and keep clicking to select more than one domain at a time.

   When you have selected the domains you want to clear the data from, simply press the Remove button and Safari will clear the data for those sites.

If you remove data for any sites you are logged in to, you will probably have to re-log in to them again, but your browsing history will still be intact.

Clearing Form Data and Passwords in Safari

Follow these instructions to clear the form data and passwords that have been saved in Safari.

1. Click the "Safari" menu

   Make sure you have a Safari window open and active; you will see the "Safari" menu in the top left of your screen. Click it and it will expand to show Safari specific options.

   

2. Click the "Preferences" menu item

   Now that you have expanded the Safari menu, you will see the Preferences item - click on it.

   

   The Safari Preferences screen will now appear.

3. Click the "AutoFill" tab

   The Safari Preferences screen has a number of sections, indicated by the various options along the top of the screen (General/Tabs/AutoFill etc). Click the AutoFill item to see AutoFill related options.

   

4. Choose what to AutoFill, and edit/clear existing data

   On the AutoFill screen, you will see a listing of types of data Safari can be configured to "remember" for you - that way, when you need to fill out some forms online, Safari will try to automatically put the correct data in for you. You can turn this feature on or off for different types of data, including contact information, credit cards, usernames & passwords, and so on.

   

   To review, edit, and delete the items that Safari has saved, click the corresponding Edit... button. Some of these items require you to enter the password for your computer - that is, the user you are currently logged in as on your Mac.

   You can use these interfaces to review and optionally delete any information you've previously entered from your computer. Because some of it is sensitive (Passwords, Credit Card numbers etc) you will have to unlock various sections by entering your computer's password.

   When you are finished, simply close Safari's Preferences by clicking the Red "close" button.