Safari on iPhone 12 has a surprising number of hidden tricks, letting you automatically close all of your tabs, access your web history, switch between tabs with just a few taps and more. It’s pretty impressive overall.
But many of us don’t know how to use the Safari app to its fullest. Fortunately, that’s why we’re here. We’ve rounded up some useful must-know Safari tips that you might not be aware of or may have forgotten, so read this article to the end because we bet there’s something here that’s going to be new to you.
See also: The best iPhone 12 hidden features
Safari Tips and Tricks
1. Close All Your Tabs at the Same Time
Has anyone else left a bunch of tabs open because the information within them was “important” and might be useful for “later”? Yes? I thought so. If you have hundreds of tabs open in Safari on your iPhone 12 and you don’t want to close them individually, Safari can close them all for you. There are two ways to do it.
Just long press right on the “Done” button in the tab view (which you can get to by pressing the little icon that looks like two squares on the bottom right of safari) and you’ll see an option to close all tabs.
Another way to do this is by pressing and holding the tab view button on the bottom right until the same Close all tabs message appears.
2. Automatically Close Your Tabs Over Time
If you always hate to leave Safari crammed with tabs every day, you can automatically make it so Safari deletes them every day, week, or month. Just make sure you save the necessary links for later. Here’s what you need to do.
Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Scroll down and tap on Safari.
Scroll down again to the Tabs section and tap on Close Tabs.
Select if you want to close your tabs after one day, one week, or one month.
3. Oops! Reopen Your Recently Closed Tabs
Accidentally closed a tab you didn’t want to close? Open the tabs view by tapping on the two squares on the bottom right corner of Safari.
Press and hold the “+” icon at the bottom of the page.
A small menu will appear displaying the most recently closed tabs. Choose the one you want to open again.
4. Translate a Website to Your Language
Safari can automatically translate many websites into your desired language. It’s simple to use, and Safari does it instantly.
In Safari, tap the aA icon on the top left side of your screen.
Tap on Translate to followed by the primary language on your iPhone.
If you want to go back to the original page, just tap on the aA again and select View Original.
Keep in mind, though, it won’t work on every website, but the most popular ones should be good.
See also: The Best iPhone Hacks, Tips & Tricks
5. Search for Keywords within Your Open Tabs
With a bunch of tabs, you might need to do some hunting around to find the specific tab you’re looking for, but luckily, a built-in tab search feature makes this a breeze. Go to your tab view by tapping on the two squares on the bottom right corner.
Scroll all the way up through your tabs.
Once you reach the top, you’ll see a search bar at the top of your screen.
Type any word, and Safari will show you every open tab that has that word.
6. Close Specific Tabs Matching Keywords
– If you want to close some of your tabs while leaving the rest open, the search bar we mentioned before will help you choose the specific tabs you want to get rid of.
Tap the two squares at the bottom right of Safari to go to tab view.
Scroll to the top of the tabs to the search bar.
Search the word or words of the websites you want to delete.
Once you got the websites listed, press and hold the Cancel button at the end of the search bar.
Tap the new message that tells you to Close Tabs Marching followed by the words you searched.
See also: iPhone 12 Camera Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Picture Quality
7. Find a Word on a Page
You know how you can use the Command + F feature on a Mac to find something specific on a page? There’s a find feature on iPhone too. There are two ways you can do it.
On the website you want to search, tap on the URL bar at the top.
Type the word or words you want to search.
Scroll down through the results that appear, and you’ll see a section called On this page that tells you where the word appears on the page and how many times it appears.
You can also search for words by tapping the Share button at the bottom of your iPhone. It’s the square with an arrow in the middle. Then scroll down a tap on Find on Page.
8. Zoom In and Out on Any Website
There’s no shame in needing a bigger font size when you browse the internet. Plus, Safari makes it really easy to do, so why not do it whenever you need to.
Tap on the aA icon on the top left corner of your screen.
Press either the small A or the bigger A to zoom in or out of the website.
9. Close Tabs on Other Devices
If you have multiple devices and use iCloud along with the feature that syncs Safari information, you can close tabs on your Mac or your iPad right from your iPhone 12. To do it, open up the tab view (again, the little icon with two squares), scroll all the way to the bottom of your open tabs, and then you’ll see an interface that lists open tabs on other devices.
10. Handoff Websites
If you’re looking at a website on your iPhone 12 and then want to open it up on your Mac, you can use Handoff, which is available on most modern Mac machines and iPhones. On the Mac, you’ll see a little Safari icon on your dock with a small iPhone icon, just click on that and whatever you’re looking at on your iPhone can be opened up right on your Mac. You can also open websites from device to device using the same cloud tab interface used for closing tabs on other devices.
11. Check Which Websites Are Tracking You the Most
Most websites have trackers. These are little scripts of codes that help websites basically learn your preferences and how you interact with the site. Services like Google Analytics allow websites to see which content is most popular, or least popular. They’re not necessarily bad since the information they give can be used to improve your overall experience, but it’s still something some people might not like.
One of Safari’s newest features is a Privacy report that not only shows you how many trackers the website you visit has, but it’ll also tell you how many trackers Safari happened to block. You can also see a report of the websites you visited with most trackers. Here’s how to check your Privacy Report.
On Safari, tap on the aA icon on the top left corner of your screen.
Tap on Privacy Report.
At the top, you’ll see how many trackers Safari has blocked in a month. You can also see many trackers the websites you’ve visited have. If you scroll down, you’ll see a list of the websites with the most trackers you’ve visited.
Have other useful iPhone 12 Safari tips and tricks that we didn’t share here? Let us know in the comments and we may include them in a future tips and tricks article.