Keeping your iPhone’s Safari browser clean and clutter-free is essential for privacy, faster performance, and a smoother browsing experience. Whether you want to erase websites you’ve visited, remove cookies, or reset everything for troubleshooting, Safari makes it easy to clear your history in just a few taps.
This guide explains step-by-step how to clear your Safari history on an iPhone, what each option means, and how to manage cookies or website data for better control of your privacy.
Why Clear History in Safari on iPhone?
Safari stores a lot of information as you browse. Clearing it can help:
1. Protect Your Privacy
Anyone who picks up your iPhone can see which websites you visited unless you clear your history.
2. Improve Browser Performance
Old cache and cookies can slow down loading times. Removing them can speed things up.
3. Fix Browser Glitches
If Safari is freezing, crashing, or failing to load pages, clearing history often resolves the problem.
4. Free Up Storage Space
Website data can take up surprising amounts of space over time.
How to Clear Your History in the iPhone Safari Browser
Follow these simple steps:
Step 1: Open the Settings App
On your Home screen, tap Settings — this is where Safari’s privacy controls are located.
Step 2: Scroll Down and Tap “Safari”
You’ll find Safari among the list of apps installed on your device.
Step 3: Select “Clear History and Website Data”
This option appears in the Privacy & Security section.
Step 4: Confirm the Action
A pop-up will appear. Tap Clear History and Data to finalize.
Important: This removes browsing history, cookies, cache, and stored website data from Safari.
How to Clear Only Cookies or Website Data (Without Removing History)
If you want to keep your history but remove tracking data and cache:
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Go to Settings → Safari
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Tap Advanced at the bottom
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Select Website Data
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Tap Remove All Website Data or delete specific sites individually
This is useful if certain sites aren’t loading correctly or you want to improve performance without losing history.
How to Clear Safari History for a Specific Time Range (iOS 17 and newer)
If your iPhone is running iOS 17 or later, Safari allows more control over what you delete.
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Open Settings → Safari
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Tap Clear History and Website Data
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Choose a time range:
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Last hour
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Today
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Today and yesterday
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All history
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This gives you flexibility if you only want to remove recent activity.
How to Clear Safari Tabs and Close All Windows
Clearing history is different from closing open tabs. Here’s how to remove everything:
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Open Safari
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Tap the Tabs icon (two overlapping squares)
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Press and hold Done
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Tap Close All Tabs
This cleans up your browsing session for better speed and organization.
How to Use Private Browsing on iPhone (No History Saved)
If you want Safari to stop saving your history entirely:
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Open Safari
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Tap the Tabs icon
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Tap the dropdown (usually “Start Page” or the number of tabs)
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Select Private Browsing
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Tap Done
Safari won’t save:
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History
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Search queries
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Cookies
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Auto-fill information
What Clearing History in Safari Does Not Remove
Even after clearing history, some data remains untouched, such as:
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Saved passwords (in Keychain)
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Bookmarks
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Autofill information (unless you remove it manually)
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Downloads already stored in the Files app
This ensures you don’t lose important saved information.
Final Thoughts
Clearing your Safari history on iPhone is quick and helps you protect privacy, improve performance, and remove clutter. Whether you want a full reset or just need to delete cookies from specific websites, iPhone settings give you complete control.