Tip: customize the Safari toolbar on your Mac

Safari Toolbar Editor

Last week, we showed you how you could customize the toolbar on your Mac’s Finder window to better suit your needs, but there are other apps throughout the macOS operating system that come with toolbar-editing capabilities as well.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how you can customize the toolbar in the Safari web browser to make your web surfing experience the best it can be for your specific needs.

How to customize the toolbar in Safari

Everyone’s web surfing habits are different, and when it comes right down to it, you really need to tailor your web browser’s user interface to get the most out of it and so it will work around your own needs, rather than somebody else’s.

For this reason, Apple has built in a toolbar-editing interface into Safari for Mac. To access it, follow these steps:

1) Right click anywhere in the blank space in the Safari toolbar:

Safari Toolbar Editing Blank Space

2) You’ll see an option dubbed Customize Toolbar…, which you’ll want to click on to proceed:

Customize Safari Toolbar

3) You will now see a cluster of various buttons and functions you are able to drag in or out of the toolbar in your Safari window. Drag features in and out as you please.

Safari Customize Toolbar Options

4) After you are done, be sure to click on the blue Done button to save any changes you make.

Among the various things you can add or remove from the Safari toolbar are:

  • Forward and back buttons
  • iCloud Tabs for viewing any tabs you have open in iCloud
  • A share button for sharing what you see on the internet
  • Show all tabs
  • A shortcut to your top websites
  • A button for getting to your home page
  • Seeing your recent web browsing history
  • Getting to the Safari sidebar
  • Getting to the Safari favorites bar
  • Getting to the AutoFill menu
  • Zooming in or out of the text you see on a website
  • Opening a site in your Dashboard
  • Emailing a website to somebody quickly
  • Printing a website
  • Hiding or showing the URL/search bar
  • And more…

The list of features you can have in Safari that aren’t present out of the box is quite extensive, so if you’re a Safari power-user, then you might find some of these hidden features useful, and adding them to your Safari window user interface could be beneficial to your specific type of workflow.

Keep in mind that a template for the original Safari user interface is always kept at the bottom of the editing interface. This way, you can always return to the factory settings, so you never have to worry about messing things up.

Wrapping up

Because everyone uses the internet differently, having the ability to customize the Safari user interface is an invaluable ability every Mac user should become familiar with.

Related:

After you’ve customized your Safari interface to your liking, share your setup below and let us know if you have some pro tips.