I’m darn concerned! Every time I start up my Apple Safari browser, I find that the program has remembered every search I’ve done, whether from the Google search box or when I’m actually on the Google home page. What the heck? How can I disable this “feature” and regain my privacy?
You’re not the first person to be concerned about the extraordinary memory that a Web browser has in terms of search fields, the Google toolbar box, and similar.
There’s a privacy issue involved, as you surmise, but there’s also a convenience factor, and it’s that tradeoff that makes it hard to just say “this shouldn’t happen”. Then again, a lot of teens have found out the hard way that mom or dad can easily ascertain what they’ve been searching for on the ‘net by checking this recent search box.
(but then again, most teens are darn tech savvy and probably already know to go into private browsing mode or otherwise delete the search cache)
When I glance at the Google box in my version of Safari (that I’m using to write this very blog entry), I find all sorts of previous searches, as you can see:
Notice the very last entry, however: “Clear Recent Searches”. That’ll solve that particular problem (earlier versions of Safari might not have that feature, however, in which case it’s yet another reason to consider upgrading to the very latest version of Mac OS X).
On the other hand, when I go to the Google home page, you’d think I’d be safe, right? But watch what happens if I type in an ‘m’ to the search box and wait just a fraction of a second:
To clear this you need to tweak your Autofill preferences. Go to Safari –> Preferences and click on the Autofill tab. You’ll see this:
It’s the “Other forms” that you want to check out. Click on “Edit…” next to that field and you’ll find a long list of different domain names that have forms your browser is sneakily tracking:
Easily done.
One more step: Your browser also has a cache (history) of actual pages you visit. If you want to get rid of those too, then you can’t be selective, you’ll have to erase all of your browser cache. That can be pretty easily done by choosing Safari –> Clear Cache….
You’ll get a warning dialog, as usual:
Proceed with this action and you should be clear.
Having explained all of this,, I’d also like to draw your attention to the darn useful Private Browsing capability of Safari. Simply choose Safari –> Private Browsing.
You’ll get a warning dialog that pretty much tells you what will happen:
I’d recommend you clear your old cache through the methods outlined above, then remember to switch to Private Browsing whenever you want to explore the net without leaving any sort of trail behind you.
Tip: If you’re trying to duplicate this on your PC, I strongly encourage you to read the terrific writeup that my pal Leo Notenboom has on his site: How to delete history items from your Google toolbar.
Safari is one of the worse browsers when it comes to privacy. The bottom line is that no matter what you do, or what you select in the preferences, Safari does a horrible job at being an advocate for the computer user as its preferences are pretty much worthless. Apple needs to pay more attention to revamping the security features of Safari.
No matter what you select, cookies will continue to collect, and the whole “ask do not track” option is nothing but you asking a site not to track you… whether they comply or not is their business, but it should be your browsers business. When you select no cookies, etc… Safari should be robust enough to stop every cookie, etc., in its tracks.
There should be a “make me untraceable” option… not a silly “ask web sites not to track me” option (which is utterly ridiculous; that’s like asking a con man not to con you).
thanz alot. good clear concise information is really hard to come by on the web, and i love the fact that you add the screen shotz az well.
In Safari 5.1.5 this link is gone already, where to clear the search history in the browser top right corner now??
What About if I am doing this for Google Chrome? Will it work the same Way?
sir, please clear our recent search list.
sir,please delete our old google address bar search list.
The fix is simple. Delete Google from phone. Reinstall Google from the app store. All the drop down boxes will be gone.
It doesn’t take long to do this either.
Hope this helps.
Thank you! I have a sneaky husband, but unfortunately, I have nothing to hide. Quite irritating, actually, and I mean the sneaky husband, not the nothing to hide part.
Happy to continue work on this with you.
Thanks a lot.
Hi,
I maneged to do it to my computer, but is there a way you can clear all searches on my browser if my iPod touch ?
Thanks,
Sarah
I will like to get back to original setup for my computer Apple Mac
Excellent tip
I’ve tried all the above, including totally Resetting Safari. And, still, when I search for something, if one of the pages Google lists is one I’ve visited in the past, next to the site name (line 1 of entry), it lists the date(s) and # of times I’ve been there. Can that be cleared away, too? Thank you
thanks Nari, that finally worked!
Thanks for posting this!
Unfortunately, after trying all that you suggested, still the history was showing in the toolbar when I typed a new search. Only after I selected ‘Reset Safari’ in the Safari drop down menu and checked the correct options on the page that opened up did the toolbar history empty out.
Options I checked were:
Clear History
Empty the Cache
Remove all cookies
Remove other autoFill form text.
Hope that helps those who are still having problems!
Hey Dave I was wondering if you know how to only delete part of your safari search on an iPhone. I want to keep some stuff but not all. Any advice?
I made a script to delete all links containing specified words in safari4mac history,
could be scheduled in crontab or any other way, to run every 10-30 mins.
Allow you to delete for example all youtube or any other links from history in mac safari leaving others.
If you are interested contact me at customkshscripts@gmail.com
How long does information stay in the ‘Recent Searches’ pulldown? Does Safari randomly put your recent searches or are they in order by last visited?
I used regularly to clear Recent Searches on Safari Leopard by using the method above and clicking on “Clear Recent Searches” but that option is not now available now I have installed Snow Leopard. Have I got to clear the cache to clear Recent Searches?
The “Clear recent searches”-box is removed?
Why would Apple remove the Clear Recent Searches option from the search field menu? APPLE, if you’re reading this… PUT IT BACK!
Selecting Clear History in Reset Safari removed all my History, not just Google search history. That is not what I wanted at all.
Jack, you’re right, Apple’s made this a bit harder by removing the “clear recent searches” from the search box in Safari. Instead, go to the “Safari” Menu and choose “Reset Safari…”. From the many check boxes, select “Clear History” and that should do the trick!
Clearing recent searches doesn’t work for me. I see no list at the bottom showing clear recent searches. I have a new Mac OS10.5.8
I use Safari on a Mac and just recently the google search bar stopped showing the “clear recent searches” option at the bottom.
Where is it? What happened? and how do I compensate?
As I am trying to delete search items pertaining to a surprise party it would be too suspicious if I suddenly switched browser.
please help before the surprise is ruined.
Dave,
This is great for Safari but what about Mac and Firefox?
Jack
hi there….have followed all your instructions to clear google search box history but when i click on ‘other forms ‘ in autofill tab there is no list of any web sites visited !
any other ways of deleting google search box history ?
i use a Mac and my browser is Safari.
any suggestions most welcome
thanx
You can also consider using third party tools to make sure the info is cleaned from your browsers, something like History Killer Pro (http://www.historykillerpro.com)
Tiala, the other person is right. What a lot of sites do is have what are called iframes, essentially tiny windows that let them load content from unrelated sites as part of their design. You can, at the most simple, have a graphic come from another site (imagine that the coffee cup on this page were actually from a Starbucks.com server, for example) which would then show up as part of the traffic stream, but the more complex inclusions that have JavaScript or even programmatic objects included (like Google AdSense) can leave a trail behind even though you never explicitly go there. A common culprit for this is Doubleclick.net, an ad network.
Hi Dave
I am using a shared Safari OS X 10.5.7
I have noticed that a particular site has regularly appeared in my cookies folder but not on the google browsing bar so I take it that the search has been done in Private Browsing as it still loads cookies unless the cookies have been disabled.
The person denying having been into this site has told me that these cookies can appear without being in the site at all, ie.
If the site in question is linked or appears in the body of another site that has been accessed. I have tried to make this happen myself but have not been able to see where it is coming from if this is the case. Can this actually happen and is there any way to find out when Private Browsing mode has been used?
Thankyou in advance.
Tiala
I have clicked on Private Browsing on My Safari but it is not permanent. It seems to cancel itself.