How to Erase Google Search History on a Mac

One of Safari's features is the "Smart Search" field on the Safari toolbar, which uses Google Suggest to recommend searches and stores your most recent searches.

Every Macintosh computer comes with Safari, the Apple Web browser. One of Safari's features is the "Smart Search" field on the Safari toolbar, which uses Google Suggest to recommend searches and stores your most recent searches. When you visit the Google search page, Safari's "AutoFill" feature prompts you both with previous searches you have done, as well as Google Suggest based searches. Both of these features remember your previous Google searches, and will prompt you with them, unless you erase your search history.

Instructions

1. Open your Safari browser by selecting it from the dock at the bottom of your screen. When the program loads, a new browser window will open.

2. Click the magnifying glass icon in the Smart Search field. The Smart Search field is located in the upper right hand corner of the browser window. Clicking that icon will display a drop-down list of your recent searches, and the "Clear Recent Searches" command. Choose "Clear Recent Searches" from the drop-down menu.

3. Choose the "Preferences..." command from the Safari menu. Select the "AutoFill" tab. The AutoFill preferences are where Safari stores your previous Google search history entries. Click the "Edit..." button to the right of the "Other Forms" check box. A separate dialog box listing all the current websites for which Safari is storing AutoFill data will appear.

4. Select "Google.com" from the site list. Click the "Remove" button to remove the AutoFill entry. Click the "Done" button. Your Google search history is now erased.

Tips & Warnings

• There's no need to manually clear your Google search history. Safari has two additional features that make this manual task unnecessary.

• Enabling "Private Browsing" during a session will stop all collecting of historical data. Web pages, AutoFill entries like Google searches, form entries, Smart Searches, and even cache files and cookies are not recorded or kept after your session. To turn on Private Browsing, choose "Private Browsing..." from the Safari menu.

• You can also schedule Safari to automatically clear your history on a regular basis. Open the Preferences window by choosing the "Preferences..." command from the Safari menu. Under the "General" tab you'll find the "Remove History Items" setting, which by default is set to "after one month."

References

• Apople Support: Mac 101: Safari 4
• Apple.com: Safari 4: 150 Features

Resources

• Google: Search History and Settings, Delete Past Searches