Safari Tips and Tricks

Mac Tips & Tricks: Safari tips & tricks

Safari's been quietly getting better for years, and most people are still using it exactly the way they did in 2015 — one window, a dozen unlabelled tabs, and no idea where anything is. A few small habits make it feel like a completely different browser. Here are four worth picking up.

1. Tab Groups.

If your tab bar is a wall of tiny favicons, Tab Groups are the fix. They let you save collections of tabs — work, research, that holiday you're planning — and switch between them without losing your place or closing anything. Each group remembers exactly which tabs were open, so you can jump from twelve browser tabs about a hotel booking straight back to your actual work in one click.

Try this:

• Click the sidebar icon (top left) then the down arrow next to your tabs to create a new Tab Group.
• Drag existing tabs into a group, or right-click a tab and choose "Move to Tab Group."
• Tab Groups sync across your iPhone and iPad automatically if you're signed into iCloud.

2. Reader mode and picture-in-picture.

Reader mode strips out adverts, pop-ups, and clutter, leaving just the article text in a clean, resizable font — brilliant for long reads or sites that fight you for attention. Picture-in-picture does something similar for video: pop a clip into a small floating window that stays on top while you work in other apps.

Try this:

• Click the sliders icon in the address bar and choose "Show Reader" (or use Shift+Cmd+R).
• Right-click most web videos and choose "Enter Picture in Picture" to keep watching while you type an email.
• Hover a link and check the bottom-left corner of the window — Safari shows a quick preview of where it actually goes before you click.

3. Profiles and password sharing.

Profiles keep separate parts of your life apart — work browsing, personal browsing, and a kids' profile all get their own tabs, history, cookies, and extensions, with no bleed between them. And if you've ever texted a Wi-Fi password to a family member, Safari's built-in password sharing is a much better way to do it.

Try this:

• Go to Safari > Profiles > New Profile to set one up for work versus personal use.
• In Settings > Passwords, create a shared group and add family members to share logins securely, without sending them in a text.
• Passkeys — the passwordless sign-in option many sites now offer — sync through this same iCloud Keychain system, so once it's set up, it just works everywhere.

4. Little things that add up.

Beyond the headline features, a handful of small Safari habits save real time once they become automatic.

Try this:

• Cmd+Shift+T reopens the tab you just closed — works even if you closed the whole window.
• Pin frequently used tabs (right-click > Pin Tab) so they're always in the same spot and never accidentally close.
• Use Cmd+L to jump straight to the address bar from anywhere on the page.
• Turn on "Hide My Email" in Settings > Passwords when signing up for something you're not sure about, to keep your real address private.

Things to remember.

• Tab Groups sync across your Apple devices automatically via iCloud — no setup needed beyond being signed in.
• Reader mode (Shift+Cmd+R) is the fastest way to make a cluttered page readable.
• Shared password groups are safer than texting or messaging login details.
• Cmd+Shift+T is the shortcut you'll use more than almost any other in Safari.

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Farpoint Developments Ltd. www.farpoint.org.uk · 01225 460 678