Safari for iOS tips

Ben Patterson shows how to hide your frequently visited sites, remotely close Safari tabs on other devices, and more.

You probably already know how to search the web from Safari’s address bar on your iPhone, or which button enables the handy Reader mode. But for every Safari feature you think you’ve mastered, another is hiding in plain sight. For example, there’s an easy way to search the current page in Safari, as well as customize how Reader mode looks and feels. Read on for more of our favourite Safari tips.

1. Hide frequently visited websites

As you’re browsing, Safari for iOS keeps track of the websites you visit the most and puts them in a Frequently Visited panel just beneath your web favourites, which you can access by tapping the address bar. The ‘Frequently visited’ section can make for a handy way to jump to favourite sites that you never bothered to manually ‘star’ as a favourite. On the other hand, it also reveals your oft-visited sites to anyone else who happens to use Safari on your iPhone or iPad.

If you’d rather keep your ‘frequently visited’ sites under wraps, try this: tap Settings > Safari, scroll down to the General section, then toggle off the Frequently Visited Sites setting.