Safari stores your browsing history, cookies, and cached files — and you can delete them in seconds
Open Safari and go to the menu bar at the top of your screen. Click Safari, then select Clear History. A window will appear asking how far back you want to clear: the last hour, today, today and yesterday, or all history. Pick your timeframe and click Clear History. That removes your browsing history, but not cookies or cached data that websites store on your device.
If you want to clear cookies, cached files, and other website data at the same time, use the more complete option instead. Go to Safari > Settings (or Preferences on older Macs), click the Privacy tab, and select Manage Website Data. From there you can remove data from specific websites or click Remove All to clear everything.
Key Takeaways
- The quick method — Safari menu > Clear History — removes only your browsing history, not cookies or cached files.
- To clear cookies and cached data too, go to Safari Settings > Privacy > Manage Website Data and select what to remove.
- You can delete data from specific websites or clear everything at once depending on what you need.
- On iPhone and iPad, go to Settings > Safari > Clear History and Website Data to remove all browsing information.
- Clearing history does not sign you out of websites, but it removes the record that you visited them.
The difference between clearing history, cookies, and cached data
History is the list of websites you visited. When you clear it, Safari removes the URLs from the dropdown menu that appears when you click the address bar. This is what most people mean when they say "clear my history."
Cookies are small files that websites store on your device to remember you. They keep you logged into accounts, remember your preferences, and track which ads you have seen. Clearing cookies logs you out of most websites and resets some of their settings.
Cached data is images, scripts, and other files that Safari saves so websites load faster the next time you visit. Clearing the cache frees up storage space and forces Safari to read fresh versions of pages, which can help if a website is displaying outdated information.
The quick Clear History option removes only history. The Manage Website Data option removes all three at once, which is why it takes longer and has a bigger effect on your device and your login status.
How to clear history on iPhone and iPad
On iPhone and iPad, the process is slightly different because Safari settings live in the main Settings app, not in Safari itself. Open Settings, scroll down and tap Safari, then scroll to the bottom and tap Clear History and Website Data. A confirmation message will appear — tap it again to confirm.
This single action clears your history, cookies, and cached data all at once. There is no option to clear only history or only cookies on mobile devices the way there is on Mac. If you want to remove data from specific websites instead of everything, tap Manage Website Data (just above the clear button) and swipe left on individual sites to delete them.
What happens when you clear your history
Clearing history removes the record that you visited those websites, but it does not erase your activity from your internet service provider's logs or from the websites themselves. Your ISP and the sites you visited still have records of your visits — clearing Safari only removes Safari's local copy.
You will be logged out of most websites after clearing cookies, so you will need to sign in again. Some websites may load slightly slower the first time you visit after clearing the cache because Safari has to read images and files again instead of using the saved copies.
If you use iCloud to sync Safari across your devices, clearing history on one device will clear it on all of them. You can turn off this syncing in Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud > Safari if you want to keep history separate on different devices.
Automating history clearing in Safari
Rather than clearing history manually, you can set Safari to do it automatically. On Mac, go to Safari > Settings > Privacy and check the box that says Remove history items. Then choose how often: after one day, one week, one month, or when Safari quits.
On iPhone and iPad, go to Settings > Safari and look for Clear History and Website Data. Tap it and choose On App Quit to have Safari automatically clear everything when you close the app. This is useful if you share your device or want privacy without thinking about it.
Automatic clearing means you will be logged out of websites each time Safari closes, which can be inconvenient. Many people prefer to clear history manually once a week or once a month instead.
Clearing specific websites instead of everything
If you only want to remove data from one or two websites, you do not have to clear everything. On Mac, go to Safari > Settings > Privacy > Manage Website Data. The list shows every website that has stored data on your device. Type the website name in the search box to find it quickly, click it, and click Remove.
On iPhone and iPad, tap Settings > Safari > Manage Website Data, search for the website, and swipe left on it to delete its data. This approach is useful when one website is misbehaving or you want to log out of a specific account without logging out of everything else.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does clearing history delete my passwords?
No. Safari stores passwords separately in iCloud Keychain, and clearing history does not touch them. If you want to remove a saved password, go to Safari Settings > Passwords, find it in the list, and swipe left to delete it on iPhone or click the minus sign on Mac.
Will clearing history speed up Safari?
Slightly, but not much. Clearing the cache frees up storage space on your device, which can help if your storage is nearly full. Clearing history itself has almost no effect on speed because the history list is very small. If Safari is running slowly, the problem is usually something else.
Can I recover history after I clear it?
No. Once you clear history in Safari, it is gone. If you use iCloud syncing, the deletion syncs to your other devices too. There is no undo or recovery option, so be sure before you confirm.
What is the difference between clearing history and private browsing?
Private browsing (Safari's private windows) prevents Safari from saving history, cookies, and cache in the first place. Clearing history removes data that was already saved. Private browsing is useful when you do not want a record of your visit; clearing history is useful after the fact.
Does clearing Safari history affect my Google search history?
No. Google search history is stored in your Google account, not in Safari. Clearing Safari history removes only the list of websites you visited. To delete your Google search history, you have to go to myactivity.google.com and delete it there.