How to delete specific pages from your Safari history on iOS and Mac

Have you ever “accidentally” visited a site on your iPhone only to immediately delete your entire history because you originally didn’t want to leave traces of your activity? That’s what has happened to me the other day, and boy, did I regret wiping my whole Safari history clean just because of one stupid page.

I assumed that iOS didn’t allow for removing individual pages from browsing history. Having done my research since I now know better. Yes, it’s possible to remove a page, any previously visited page, from your browsing history in Safari on both iOS and Mac. It couldn’t be simpler. Let me show you how.

Delete Specific Page in Safari on iPhone

How to delete individual pages from Safari history

On iPhone and iPad

  1. Fire up Safari on your iPhone or iPod touch, and tap the bookmark icon in the bottom right corner (the one resembling an open book). On iPad, tap the sidebar icon from the top left and choose History.
  2. Tap the History (clock icon) button at the top.
  3. Scroll through the list to find the previously visited page you’d like to remove, swipe it from right to left and select Delete.
  4. When finished removing specific pages from your history, tap the Done button.
Delete single Safari History on iPhone

On Mac

  1. Fire up Safari on your Mac and press Command + Y to see your browsing history. You can also click History > Show All History from the top menu bar.
  2. Find the previously visited page you’d like to remove. Control-click or right-click on it and choose Delete from the contextual drop-down menu.

OS X Yosemite (how to remove individual pages from Safari history 002)

Tip: You can also select the entry and hit the delete key on your keyboard.

To select multiple pages in Safari history, press and hold the Command key and make your selection. After that, hit the delete key to remove them.

Keep in mind that iCloud keeps your browser history synced across Mac and iOS devices that are linked to the same iCloud account, in addition to your bookmarks, open tabs, and Reading List items.

As a result, deleting a webpage on one device removes it automatically from Safari history on all your other devices. It’s a great time saver and precisely what most people will want to do anyway. Should you, however, prefer to have separate web browsing history on each device, consider disabling Safari sync in Settings/System Preferences > Apple ID > iCloud.

Turn off iCloud for Safari on Mac

Removing cherry-picked items from your Safari history on iOS and Mac is a sure-fire solution to the problem of unwanted history items surfacing in Safari’s suggestions in the search/URL bar.

Privacy-minded parents who share devices with their kids will be happy learning they can take steps to ensure any webpage doesn’t show up in their browsing history.

Or maybe you were just skimming through online shopping sites in search of the perfect holiday present for your significant other. In that case — unless you were shopping for presents in Safari’s private browsing mode — you don’t want your spouse to inadvertently spoil the surprise by stumbling upon your gift ideas in your browsing history.

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