When browsing the web using your Mac, you are leaving a couple of footprints behind that can be traced back to you. First is the record of your browsing with your visited websites. This record is kept by the server on which the site is hosted. The other record is kept by your Mac and it is often referred to as browsing history. Though you can use VPNs to ensure that no website knows who you are and where you are coming from, but what you can do with your Mac? Even though you always have the option of clearing the browsing history, it requires you to manually do that every time you want to. A better option for you, in our opinion, is to use Private Browsing capabilities of your Safari browser on Mac. With this, you can easily browse whatever you want and no trace whatsoever will be left behind.
Jump To Section
- Private Browsing Explained
- How To Use Private Browsing In Safari On Mac
- How To Set Default Browser Setting To Private Browsing
Private Browsing Explained
Before we get into the details of how you can browse privately using your Safari browser on Mac, let’s first get rid of the curiosity you might be getting into. If you are wondering what is this private browsing all about, let’s discuss what it can and can’t do. You’d have become knowledgeable enough by now to tell that it prevents any kind of records of your browsing history from being kept anywhere. You do not go invisible online, and your IP is not hidden at all either. And when you visit any websites on the internet privately, the servers know that you are there too.
So, we can say, private browsing is all about not letting others know what you are doing or which websites you are browsing. For instance, you may be sharing your Mac with others and you’d want to keep your browsing history private. It’s especially useful when you’re browsing on a computer that is publicly shared.
How To Use Private Browsing In Safari On Mac
So, if you are receptive to private browsing now then, let’s discuss how you can use it on your Mac while using the Safari web browser. Here are the steps you need to follow for changing settings so that you can browse privately.
- Launch Safari browser on your Mac
- Open File menu and select New Private Window (The keyboard shortcut for this is Shift-Command-N)
- This will open a new browser window which has nothing different from normal browser window other than that its address bar is a bit darker. (This window will also have a little helpful description related to private browsing right on top)
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Now anything that you will be browsing using this new private window will not be stored anywhere.No matter how many tabs you open in the window, the browsing history for all of them will be kept private. Once the window is closed nothing will be remembered by your browser.
Also, after closing the private window, you can continue to browse normally in a new window as well. It is also possible to use both the normal and the private windows on Safari side-by-side. Even several private windows can be used at a time by opening them using the aforementioned process. Even if you are browsing the same website using a normal and private window concurrently, your Mac will only record a single visit to that website in its history.
How To Set Default Browser Setting To Private Browsing
Even though Private Browsing feature offered by Safari web browser lets you browse the web without leaving any traces behind, but it is still important for you to remember to launch private windows each time you want to access that functionality. And if you forget to do that even once, you’ll be risking your browsing history to everyone else who uses your Mac. But it is possible that you set your browser’s default settings in a way that whenever you open a new window it opens in the private mode.
Here are the steps for this.
- Launch Safari
- Go to Preferences (you can also use the shortcut keys Command-[comma] for this)
- In General tab you will find a drop-down with the label Safari opens with
- Here you need to set the default value to A New Private Window
Now whenever you will launch your Safari browser on Mac, you will be browsing in a private window with nothing recorded by your Mac in terms of browsing history. Normal windows can still be opened whenever you may like. You can do that by either going to File menu and then selecting New Window or by giving the shortcut keys combination Command-N.