Delete Safari history in three steps

Open Safari and press Command + Y on Mac or tap the clock icon at the bottom of the screen on iPhone and iPad. This opens your history panel. At the top, select the time range you want to clear — "the last hour", "today", "today and yesterday", or "all time" — then tap or click Clear History. Safari removes those entries immediately.

If you want to delete individual history entries instead of clearing everything at once, you can swipe left on any entry in the history panel and tap Delete. This removes just that one page from your history without touching anything else.

On Mac, you can also use the menu: click Safari at the top left, then Clear History, choose your time range, and click Clear History again. The result is the same as using the keyboard shortcut.

Key Takeaways

  • Press Command + Y on Mac or tap the clock icon on iPhone and iPad to open your history panel in one step.
  • You can delete everything from a specific time period or delete individual pages one at a time by swiping left.
  • Clearing history does not delete your saved passwords, autofill information, or website data — those require separate steps if you want to remove them.
  • If you use iCloud to sync Safari across devices, clearing history on one device removes it from all your devices signed into the same Apple account.

What gets deleted when you clear history

When you clear Safari history, you remove the list of websites you have visited and the dates you visited them. This is the only thing the history-clearing function touches. Your bookmarks stay in place, your reading list remains unchanged, and any passwords you have saved to Safari are not affected.

Website data — cookies, cached images, and form information that websites store on your device — is separate from history. If you want to remove those as well, you need to go to Settings (iPhone and iPad) or Safari > Settings (Mac), find Privacy, and tap or click Manage Website Data or Remove All Website Data. History and website data are two different things, and clearing one does not clear the other.

Delete history on iPhone and iPad

Open Safari and tap the clock icon at the bottom right of the screen. This shows your history organized by time — recent visits at the top, older visits below. At the very top of the screen, you will see options for the last hour, today, today and yesterday, and all time. Tap whichever period you want to clear.

Once you select a time range, a Clear History button appears at the bottom of the screen. Tap it, and Safari removes all history from that period. If you want to delete just one page instead, swipe left on that entry and tap the trash icon that appears.

If you cannot find the clock icon, make sure you are looking at the bottom of the Safari window. On iPad in landscape mode, the icon may be in a different location depending on your screen size, but it is always a clock symbol.

Delete history on Mac

Click Safari in the menu bar at the top left of your screen. A dropdown menu appears. Click Clear History near the middle of that menu. A dialog box opens asking you to choose a time range: the last hour, today, today and yesterday, or all time. Select the one you want and click Clear History again.

Alternatively, press Command + Y to open the history sidebar on the left side of Safari. Find the entry you want to remove, right-click it, and select Delete from the menu. This removes just that one page without clearing anything else.

You can also access history clearing through Safari > Settings in the menu bar, then click the Privacy tab. At the bottom, you will see options for removing website data, though the quickest route is always the Clear History menu option.

History syncs across your Apple devices

If you are signed into the same Apple account on multiple devices and have iCloud sync turned on for Safari, clearing history on one device removes it from all of them. This happens automatically — you do not need to do anything extra. When you clear history on your iPhone, that same history disappears from your Mac and iPad as well.

If you do not want history to sync, you can turn off Safari syncing in your iCloud settings. On iPhone and iPad, go to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud and toggle Safari off. On Mac, go to System Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud and uncheck Safari. After you turn off syncing, clearing history on one device will no longer affect your other devices.

Private browsing does not save history

If you do not want Safari to record your history in the first place, use Private Browsing mode. On iPhone and iPad, tap the tabs icon at the bottom right, then tap Private at the bottom left. On Mac, click File in the menu bar and select New Private Window. Any pages you visit in Private Browsing mode do not appear in your history.

Private Browsing also prevents Safari from storing cookies and website data from those pages, though your internet service provider and the websites themselves can still see what you visit. When you close a Private Browsing window or tab, Safari forgets everything about those pages — no history entry, no cached data, nothing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does clearing Safari history delete my passwords?

No. Clearing history only removes the list of websites you visited. Your saved passwords, autofill information, and payment methods stay in Safari. If you want to delete a specific password, go to Settings > Passwords on iPhone and iPad, or Safari > Settings > Passwords on Mac, find the entry, and delete it individually.

Can I recover history after I delete it?

Once you clear history in Safari, it is gone. Safari does not have an undo function for history deletion. If you synced your history to iCloud before deleting it, you cannot recover it through Safari — the deletion syncs across all your devices. Your device's backup may contain the old history, but restoring a backup overwrites everything on your device.

What is the difference between clearing history and clearing website data?

History is the list of pages you visited. Website data includes cookies, cached images, and information websites store about you. Clearing history does not remove website data, and clearing website data does not remove history. You can clear them separately or together depending on what you want to remove.

Why does my history still show up after I cleared it?

If you are synced to iCloud, clearing history on one device removes it from all devices — but if you visit a page on another device after clearing, that new visit appears in your history. Also check that you selected the right time range. If you only cleared "the last hour" but your history goes back further, older entries will still be there.

Can I set Safari to automatically delete history?

Safari does not have a built-in automatic deletion feature. Your best option is to use Private Browsing mode, which never saves history. On Mac, you can also set up a shortcut or script to clear history on a schedule, but this requires some technical setup outside of Safari itself.