10 Safari Life Hacks Every User Should Know

If you’re one of those people who only uses Safari to download Chrome, you might want to reconsider. For Mac users, Safari may be the best browser ( yes, even better than Chrome ). It’s fast, secure, doesn’t lag under most workloads, uses little RAM, and extends battery life. And yes, there are even extensions and ad blockers that work natively in Safari.

It’s time to take a fresh look at Safari and use all its hidden features and intelligence to improve your web browsing experience.

Remove ads and other distractions.

When this feature first launched, it became something of a TikTok meme. Just in case you haven’t heard, Safari has a new “Hide Distractions” feature that can remove almost anything on a webpage. You’ll find it in the Page Options menu (the “-“ icon to the left of the address bar). Once activated, try clicking on a pop-up menu, an autoplaying video, a newsletter sign-up bar, or anything else. It’ll disappear from your screen, and you’ll even see a little animation showing it disappearing, as if Thanos had just clicked it. And Safari will remember your click, so it won’t appear the next time you visit that site on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad. And if you’re feeling more like Iron Man, yes, you can undo your clicks.

Install a good ad blocker in Safari.

For ad blocking, Firefox and Chrome offer the uBlock Origin extension. Browsers like Brave and Opera also have built-in ad blocking. Safari has always struggled in this regard. There’s never been a true alternative to uBlock for Safari. There is a version of uBlock Origin for Safari , but it doesn’t use Safari’s native ad blocking framework, so it’s inferior in performance and blocking capabilities.

But now, it seems, a worthy alternative has finally appeared, called wBlock . I’ve been using it ever since my colleague Justin Pot wrote about it, and I’m happy to say that it finally brings Safari’s ad blocking to the level of some of the larger browsers. And the best part? wBlock is free and open-source.

Use tab groups and the sidebar.

Before development was suspended, I really liked the Arc browser . But since the company shut it down, I’ve become disillusioned with it and stopped using alternatives like Zen Browser . What I miss most about Arc are workspaces and vertical tabs. But now Safari has them too. In Safari, you can now create tab groups that can contain any number of tabs. I use them as workspaces. One group for reading long articles, another for searching for travel information, and so on.

And while I’m in a tab group, I also like to do so with the sidebar open ( click the “Sidebar” button next to the back and forward buttons), which gives me a vertical list of tabs similar to what I use in Arc. It’s not quite like Arc, as the horizontal tab bar at the top doesn’t disappear. But the vertical list of tabs still helps. It also helps that tab groups sync with my iPhone and iPad, so I can continue my research there too.

To create a new tab group, click the New Tab Group button at the top of the sidebar. Alternatively, you can select multiple tabs, right-click, and choose Move to Tab Group > New Tab Group . On iPhone, open the Tab Switcher, tap the Menu button at the top, and select New Empty Tab Group to get started.

New Safari design for iPhone

Safari was one of the few apps to receive a significant design update in iOS 26, including a redesigned bottom bar. Lifehacker has a detailed guide on all the new hidden gestures and features in Safari’s updated design for iOS 26 , but I’ll highlight a few of my favorites here.

• To quickly switch between tabs, swipe left or right on the address bar.

• Tap and hold the address bar : there’s a lot of information hidden here. You can copy a link, paste text from the clipboard, switch to another group of tabs, close tabs, or close all tabs.

• Swipe up on the address bar : Swipe up on the address bar to display all open tabs. From here, you can swipe left or right to switch between tab groups. From the top menu, you can easily copy links for all open tabs.

• Pin tabs : Tap and hold a website on the tabs screen, then select the Pin tab option to pin the website to the top of the browser.

Bring back the old tab bar on iPhone.

If you don’t like the new compact tab bar on iPhone or the gestures, you can still revert to the old way of doing things. Go to Settings > Apps > Safari > Tabs . Toggle the “Bottom” option to return to the expanded bottom toolbar, or select the “Top” option to revert to the older layout.

Create separate web browsing scenarios using profiles.

It’s not as obvious in Safari as it is in Chrome, but it also has profiles that sync across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. You can use profiles to separate your work and personal life. This can also be useful if you and your spouse use the same Mac.

Profiles allow you to completely isolate your online activity from that of other users, including login information, cookies, browsing history, tab groups, favorites, and even extensions.

To create a profile in Safari on a Mac, go to Settings > Profiles . On an iPhone, go to Settings > Apps > Safari > Profiles and tap Create Profile . Give it a name and choose an icon and color. This will change the background color of the start page to make it easier to identify which profile you’re on.

Turn your favorite websites into apps.

On a Mac, you can use Safari to turn any frequently used website into a standalone app . It will appear in the Dock and in the app switcher. It’s still the same website, but it will have its own shortcut in your Mac’s interface, making it easier to use. If you use your Mac for retail or any other specialized work that requires accessing a website, this can be very convenient.

To do this, go to the website, click the “Share” button, and then “Add to Dock.” Your credentials and extensions will sync automatically. The toolbar color will also match the website’s colors.

You can also do this on an iPhone by going to the website, tapping the “Share” button, then “More,” and then ” Add to Home Screen .” The website’s logo will appear on the home screen as an “app” and serve as a shortcut to the website.

Automatically close open tabs

I love opening tabs, but I hate closing them. Because of this, I easily reach the 500 tab limit in Safari. So, I enabled the option to automatically close tabs older than 30 days. You can do this in Settings > Apps > Safari > Close Tabs . You can choose one day, one week, or one month.

Listen to the page out loud

You’re probably familiar with Safari’s Reading Mode, which is arguably the best of its kind. But there’s another feature hidden in the page settings . Click the ” Listen to Page” button, and Safari will instantly begin reading the website aloud. However, before doing so, I’d recommend switching to Reading Mode first, so the text-to-speech feature isn’t interrupted by ads or other distractions.

Customize or change your Safari start page.

Every time you open Safari or a new tab, you see the browser’s default start page. Let’s tweak its appearance and functionality a bit. First, open the start page, then click the “Edit” button in the lower right corner to enable or disable the sections displayed. I recommend adding sections for Favorites, Reading List, iCloud Tabs, and Recently Closed Tabs. You can also change the background color to any color you like.

If you don’t like a cluttered start page, you might also want to try the Bonjourr extension for Safari . It’s a replacement for the start page I’ve been using for months. It automatically switches between calm backgrounds, displaying the time and weather. You can also add quick shortcuts to frequently visited sites. It’s also fully customizable and looks great on both iPhone and Mac.

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