With macOS Big Sur and Monterey, Apple is positioning Safari as a true alternative to Google Chrome or Microsoft EdgeWith each iteration of macOS, Apple adds a good number of new features and customization options to Safari on Mac. Here are the top six ways to customize Safari like a pro on Mac.
Not everyone loves Safari's new tab management, boring white background, or plain home screen. With Safari's customization options, you can easily customize your Safari experience to your liking. Follow the steps below and make the necessary changes to your Safari browser to make it truly yours.
1. Try a new tab design to customize Safari on Mac
With macOS Monterey, Apple offers a different way to organize your tabs. You can either keep tabs separate (the default option) or use the compact layout.
Step 1: Open Safari on your Mac and click the Safari name in the menu bar.
Step 2: Go to Safari Preferences.
Step 3: From the tabs list, select Compressed.
You'll quickly see your current tabs move to the top along with extensions and other items. This is useful for those who want to take advantage of more space in Safari on their Mac.
For us, we find the arrangement quite cluttered when dealing with dozens of tabs, so we've gone back to a separate option.
2. Enable color in the tab bar to customize Safari on Mac
This is another addition Apple added with the macOS Monterey update. You can now enable color in the tab bar. Safari will extract the color from the website and display it across the tab bar.
Step 1: Open the Safari Preferences menu.
Step 2: Go to tabs.
Step 3: Enable the Show color option in the tab bar.
Again, when you have multiple tabs open in Safari and switch between them, you may encounter difficulty consistently changing colors in Safari tabs. From the same menu, you can return to the previous method.
3. Customize the toolbar to customize Safari on Mac
This is one of the oldest ways to customize your Safari experience on Mac. Open Safari and right-click on an area at the top of the screen. Select Customize Toolbar, which will open the Custom Toolbar menu.
You can use the toolbar menu to drag and drop relevant functions to the toolbar. Users can add flexible space to the Safari toolbar.
We mostly keep extensions on the left side of the address bar and the “Download, Share & Add” tab on the right side.
4. Apply a wallpaper to customize Safari on Mac
Introduced with macOS Big Sur, Apple allows you to change the default wallpaper on the Safari start page. Follow the steps below to change the wallpaper in Safari on your Mac.
Step 1: Open Safari and click on the menu at the bottom.
Step 2: Use the slider at the bottom and take a quick look at the app's default wallpapers in Safari.
Step 3: If you are not satisfied with Apple's built-in wallpapers, you can click the + icon and apply a wallpaper from your Mac's storage.
Make sure you don't use an unconventional background that makes it difficult to read the text on the Safari home page.
5. Enable iCloud Bookmarks to Customize Safari on Mac
This is useful for those who frequently switch between Apple devices. If you have Safari tabs open on your iPhone or iPad, you can easily access them from the Safari home page on your Mac without going through your history.
Step 1: Go to Safari and click on the Settings menu at the bottom.
Step 2: Enable iCloud Tabs, and you'll see Safari tabs appear on the Home screen.
From the same menu, you can also enable the Privacy Report. The Privacy Report shows how much malicious tracker Safari blocks during your browsing sessions.
6. Change search engine
By default, Safari uses Google to answer your queries. However, Safari isn't limited to Google alone. You can easily switch to Yahoo or DuckDuckGo from the Preferences menu. Here's how.
Step 1: Open Safari on your Mac.
Step 2: Use the command + keys and open the preferences menu.
Step 3: Go to search.
Step 4: Select the search engine.
Step 5: You can change from Google to Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, or Ecosia.
If you are not satisfied with the new search engine, you can always go back to Google from the same menu.
Personalize your Safari experience on Mac
Users can also go ahead and uninstall Safari extensions on Mac. Safari remains our top choice for web browsing on Mac. Unless you're missing your favorite Chromium extensions, you might consider checking out Chrome or Edge on a MacWe recommend using Safari and making relevant changes based on your preferences for the rest of the audience. What are you waiting for? Go ahead and start customizing Safari on your Mac.
