macOS Sierra: The Missing Manual

Chapter 19. Safari

Safari is the Mac’s web browser. All the essentials are here: an address bar, a search bar, bookmarks, a history list, and so on. If you haven’t visited Safari in a while, you might be surprised to see how much Apple has moved things around, compacted things, and streamlined things. The premise being that most people would prefer to dedicate their web browser to seeing web pages, not staring at toolbars.

For example, the top of the window no longer displays the name of the website you’re on. And the address bar no longer displays the full address of the page you’re on. You may be reading http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/29/us/politics/house-vote-moves-budget-deal-closer-to-approval.html, but the address bar shows only nytimes.com.

(If you’d rather see the full address, then choose Safari→Preferences→Advanced and turn on “Show full website address.”)

The following pages walk you through the new structure of Safari. But if you’re an old hand and prefer the layout of the previous Safari, no worries; you can restore almost everything to the way it was in the olden days…of 2014.

The Unified Address/Search Bar

There are all kinds of ways to begin your web surfing session. Perform a search. Click a bookmark. On the following pages: a rundown of these starting points.

Often, of course, you’ll want to type in a web address; that’s the purpose of the address/search bar identified in Figure 19-1. In macOS, a single, unified box serves as both the address bar and the search bar. ...