Websites use cookies and other site data to remember you, so you don’t have to log in again, repeat the two-factor authentication process, refill text forms, etc. Cookies and site data can also be used to remember your choices from previous browsing sessions and customize your preferences. For instance, a flight booking website can save the two cities you were looking to book tickets for.

While cookies, cache, and local site data are essential parts of web browsing, there can be instances where you will want to delete them. For example, if a website is showing error pages, is not loading correctly, takes ages to render images, displays an older version of the web page, or prevents you from logging in, clearing cookies and site data can help fix such problems.

Additionally, it’s well known that hotel, flight, and other such sites track your past activity and may jack up the prices in future visits as they know you’re returning to their website and are likely to book. So, clearing cookies, cache, and site data before revisiting can help.

Why not clear all browser cookies? While you can certainly clear all your web browser data and start fresh, doing so logs you out of every website you’re signed into. Therefore, if your browsing experience across all sites is fine, but you have trouble with a specific website, clearing the cache and site data for that particular site is the best option.

Here are the steps for all popular browsers on Mac, but of course, the directions also work if you’re on a Windows PC.

Safari

• Launch Safari and click Safari > Settings in the top menu bar
• Go to the Privacy tab and click Manage Website Data
• Wait for the website list to load and find the site whose cookies, cache, and data you want to delete (you can also type the website name in the search bar to find it quickly)
• Select a website or hold the Command key to select more than one
• Finally, click the Remove button and hit Done

Chrome

• Open Google Chrome and click the three vertical dots in the top right corner, followed by Settings
• Click Privacy and security in the left sidebar and go to Site settings > View permissions and data stored across sites
• Go through the list of websites or use the search bar to find the one whose data you want to delete and lick the trash icon next to it to delete its cookies and data

Firefox

• Launch Firefox on your computer, click the hamburger menu icon in the upper right corner, and select Settings from the bottom
• Click Privacy & Security
• Click the Manage Data button under the Cookies and Site Data heading
• Select the website whose cookies and data you want to delete and click Remove Selected, after that, click Save Changes

Edge

• Head to the Microsoft Edge browser on your computer and click the three horizontal dots icon in the top right corner, then click Settings from the bottom of the menu
• Click Cookies and Site Permissions in the left sidebar
• Click Manage and delete cookies and site data from the top
• Now click See all cookies and site data
• Finally, hit the arrow next to a website name to expand it and use the trash icon to delete its cookies

Brave

• Open Brave on your Mac and go to its settings by clicking the hamburger icon in the upper right corner
• Select Privacy and security
• Click Site and Shields Settings
• Now, click View permissions and data stored across sites
• Hit the trash icon next to a website to clear its stored site data

Browsing history is a record of every webpage you visit. Your browser stores the URLs for every page, except when you use private browsing mode. Browsing history can help improve your browsing experience (e.g. as you start typing a URL in the address bar of your browser, previously visited URLs display in a dropdown list that match what you're typing), but it also exposes your browsing habits. If other people use your Mac from time to time, or you get family members looking over your shoulder as you surf the web, you may want to delete your browsing history on a regular basis.

You can manually clear your browsing history in Safari at any time. Two of the ways to clear all your browser history are:

• Choose "Clear History" from the Safari application menu
• Choose "Clear History" from the History menu

but be aware that the name "Clear History" is misleading. Clicking "Clear History" also deletes other website data, like cookies and the entire browser cache. However, there is a way to clear your browsing history without losing website data.

Simply choose the Safari or History menu, but press and hold down the Option key before selecting the "Clear History" option. You'll see the option change to "Clear History and Keep Website Data". Keep the Option key pressed and select that option.

Whether you’re for example browsing Amazon and have opened a bunch of product tabs that you need to share via Messages or have several tabs open for your research work that you want to add to your document, you can simplify this process by copying all open website addresses in one go. As a result, you won’t have to manually copy each open link, paste it, and then repeat this process back and forth for the remaining tabs. A couple of clicks and all open URLs will be copied to your device’s clipboard for pasting into other apps.

• Make sure you have the relevant tabs open on Safari

• Click the sidebar icon in the top left corner of the window or press the Shift+Command+L to show the sidebar

• Right-click over the profile or Tab Group name and choose Copy Links, all URLs of open tabs will be copied to your Mac’s clipboard

Now go to Notes, Messages, Mail, Pages, Word, or another app, and paste the links there. When using Command+V to paste in an app that supports rich formatting, you’ll notice that the website name with the URL linked to it is pasted. But if you use Command+Option+Shift+V to paste without formatting, or paste them normally in an app like Messages, you’ll have both the website name and the full URL in plain text.

This is particularly helpful if you use a third-party password manager or prefer managing your login credentials manually.

• Open the Passwords app
• Choose Passwords > Settings in the top menu bar, then authenticate with Touch ID or your computer password
• Uncheck Suggest Strong Password

You’ll no longer get suggestions in Safari to create a new password (and save it to the Passwords app) when you’re signing up for a new account on a website or changing the password of an existing website. But you should still see a tiny key icon in the password field, which you can click to generate a new password. If you don’t want to see even the tiny key icon in the password field to use the Passwords app, go to Safari settings > AutoFill and uncheck the box for "User names and passwords".

Color tinting in the Safari titlebars and window bars is not a new feature, but even if you had it disabled on prior versions of Safari, if you recently upgraded to macOS Tahoe you will likely find this feature has enabled itself again automatically, and thus you need to disable it again.

If you are tired of the garish color changing of the window titlebars, here’s how to disable that:

• From Safari, pull down the ‘Safari’ menu and choose “Settings...”
• Go to “Tabs”
• Uncheck the box for “Show color in tab bar”

The change takes effect immediately.