Best safari secrets

11 min read

Improve your web browsing experience with these essential Mac tips and tricks

As Mac users, Apple’s Safari internet browser is a staple of our everyday lives. Whether it’s for checking Gmail, catching up on the latest news or watching YouTube videos, Safari is a simple and robust app for enjoying the best that the worldwide web has to offer. However, as is the case with most Apple apps, there is a lot more to it than meets the eye. For example, did you know that you can bump up the size of the website text outside of Reader mode? And did you know that you can watch videos in an entirely separate window free from the usual clutter?

We’ve dug deep into Safari’s vast array of options and lesser-known features to provide a fun insight into how far you can take your browsing experience, and how accommodating Safari can be. Read on to discover something new.

1 Make Safari text bigger

If you know Safari then you’ll know that clicking on the ‘View’ menu presents options to zoom in and out. However, this enlarges everything, including the images, so if you just want to bump up the size of the text to make it easier to read then there is a neat trick. Just hold down the option/alt key while clicking on the ‘View’ menu, and then the previous zoom options will change to ‘Make Text Bigger/Smaller’.

2 Reload properly

If a web page doesn’t load properly, clicking the reload icon to the right of the Search/URL bar usually addresses this problem. However, this reloads the page from a cached version – so if you want to freshly reload the page from the website itself, hold down the option/alt key, click on the ‘View’ menu and then choose the ‘Reload Page From Origin’ option.