Even if you delete your browser history, a tech-savvy person may still have the ability to recover deleted files on your computer.
Clear your browsing history in Safari on Mac
You can remove all of your Internet files permanently by first clearing your Safari browser history and then wiping the free space on your hard drive with the Mac OS X Disk Utility. Click the "History" drop-down menu, select "Clear History Click the "Clear" button to remove your history immediately. This option doesn't remove passwords and other website data that could potentially identify the websites you visited.
Click the "History" drop-down menu and select "Show Full History" to delete individual history options. Click on the "History" tab in the sidebar and then select each website you want to clear. Press the "Delete" button on your keyboard to delete the items you selected. Click the "Safari" drop-down menu, select "Preferences" and click the "General" tab. Choose the "Remove History Items" drop-down menu and choose a time interval to automatically delete your history.
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Options exist to automatically delete data each day, week, every two weeks, monthly, yearly or manually. Open Safari, click the "Safari" drop-down menu and select "Reset Safari.
Resetting Safari essentially restores Safari to its default settings, erasing all your modifications in the process. Check each of the available options on the Reset Safari page. The first option labeled Clear History deletes your history.
Keep your browsing private: delete your search history on Mac
The remaining options enable you to remove top site information, delete preview images, reset any location warnings and delete other information that can be used to determine the websites you visited. If you want to keep certain data, don't select the option for that data. For example, keep your passwords by not checking the "Remove Saved Names and Passwords" check box.
Select the "Go" drop-down menu on your Mac and click "Utilities" on your Mac menu bar. Double-click the "Disk Utility" program icon and then select your hard drive from the sidebar. Click the "Erase" tab and select the "Erase Free Space" button. When you delete items from your hard drive, the date stays on the hard drive but becomes invisible to you.
The erase free space option writes over the data several times with numbers, essentially using blank data to make it impossible to recover your information. Set the slider to "Fastest" to perform a quick erase of all your files. Set the slider to "Most Secure" to overwrite your hard drive seven times. Or, choose the middle point on the slider to get a good compromise between a fast erase and the most secure option.
Do note deleting an item from Safari history on the Mac is permanent, at least until that site s or webpage s have either been visited again, or unless a backup of the Mac has been restored to the computer. You can not undo removal of Safari history items.
How to Delete Specific Safari History on Mac
You can selectively remove any item found within Safari history on a Mac by following these instructions:. This tip is particularly useful when combined with the Safari History Search feature, since you can find specific keywords, terms, webpages, websites, and topics within History if you want to selectively delete the history within the browser for any found occurrences. If you find yourself frequently wanting to delete specific Safari history items, you may be better off preemptively using Private Browsing mode in Safari for Mac , which does not leave any browser history when active.
While removing local history will remove traces of a website visit from a particular computer and perhaps hide the visit from yourself or another person, that local data removal has no impact on the various remote servers or the underlying infrastructure used to access websites or the internet in the first place, which separately will track all internet data like website visits and browsing sessions and they may sell that data too. As usual, iOS users are not left out either, as you can delete specific history items from Safari on iPhone and iPad too using a similar method.
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