How the heck do you disable the history in Safari?

[Jigglelicious]

I gave my parents my old iMac to use so they can start browsing the web. However, every time they start to type in a web address and safari butts in with its autocomplete history, it confuses the heck out of them and they don't know what to do. So basically I want to completely disable Safari's history, or at the very least, its autocomplete feature. I've looked everywhere and can't find the option for this. Could anyone assist?

[spav]

I gave my parents my old iMac to use so they can start browsing the web. However, every time they start to type in a web address and safari butts in with its autocomplete history, it confuses the heck out of them and they don't know what to do. So basically I want to completely disable Safari's history, or at the very least, its autocomplete feature. I've looked everywhere and can't find the option for this. Could anyone assist?

Safari autocompletes any bookmarks you have also. They may be autocompleting from there.

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

I gave my parents my old iMac to use so they can start browsing the web. However, every time they start to type in a web address and safari butts in with its autocomplete history, it confuses the heck out of them and they don't know what to do. So basically I want to completely disable Safari's history, or at the very least, its autocomplete feature. I've looked everywhere and can't find the option for this. Could anyone assist?

With Mozilla you can turn off autocompletion in the preferences: Goto Navigator -> Smart Browsing and uncheck the Location Bar Autocomplete and you will only get what you type.

Maybe your parents could use Mozilla until Safari gets this feature (which Apple ought to add as soon as possible).

Good Luck.

[Frisco]

Okay you can disable the History from Autocompleting, but I don't know of any way to prevent it from automcompleting from your booksmarks.

Here's how
(1) In Safari go to History>Clear History
(2) Close Safari
(3) Go to Home>Library>Safari
(4) Get Info on the File History.plist
a) Change Ownerships & Permissions to Read Only
b) Check the locked tab on top
c) Click on the little lock icon on the bottom

Safari stills remembers the history until you close Safari

I wish I knew of a way to stop autocompleting from bookmarks

Safari's autocompletion is its worst feature

[Jigglelicious]

Okay you can disable the History from Autocompleting, but I don't know of any way to prevent it from automcompleting from your booksmarks.

Here's how
(1) In Safari go to History>Clear History
(2) Close Safari
(3) Go to Home>Library>Safari
(4) Get Info on the File History.plist
a) Change Ownerships & Permissions to Read Only
b) Check the locked tab on top
c) Click on the little lock icon on the bottom

Safari stills remembers the history until you close Safari

I wish I knew of a way to stop autocompleting from bookmarks

Safari's autocompletion is its worst feature

Thanks a ton. Its not as simple as it should be, but it does the job well enough. My main issue is with Safari and its autocomplete - instead of autocompleting only the root website (ex- www.macrumors.com), it'll autocomplete the longest possible list of directories into the site (ex- www.macrumors.com/blahblah/blahblah/blahblah.something.html), which is of no help at all.

[hermitizer]

try downloading and installing tinkertool...one of the options is to set the number of sites to store in your history...setting to 0 should eliminate your problem...

[jeremy.king]

Safari Enhancer (http://www.lordofthecows.com/safari_enhancer.php) will do the same.

[parrothead]

Hmmm, I wonder what you are trying to hide from your parents?? :D ;)

[Macooter]

For previous visits to domain.com... Go to Macintosh HD, Username, Library, Safari, History.plist. Open that file. Manually delete all the code and such. Close file, and choose save, then overwrite. That will put a stop to all autocomplete url in the safari browser. Of course you need to set your normal autocomplete business to off in your general preferences in safari.

You can also delete the downloads.plist in the same way.

One more detail. This does not remove autocomplete for urls in your bookmarks. You have to delete the bookmark if you want that to stop remembering where you have gone online.

After doing all that, choose safari, reset safari, and you should have no more problems.

And finally: be good online, and you won't have to go through all those annoying steps.

[ihabime]

Wow, just wow. I know you're new, but you just dredged up a thread that's been dead for 5 years, that's the oldest thread I've seen someone do that to. They were probably talking about safari 1.03 :p

And I think your hint is wrong, there's no preference for turning off address bar completion, just webpage form filling.

[Sayer]

I find the Autocomplete works better than Firefox. Firefox 3's autocomplete is so horrendous its almost unusable as it tries to match *anything* you type to *any* part of a URI including the website's name for pete's sake.

Also, Safari automatically bubbles up more frequently typed in URLs to the top of the list over time.

You couldn't just tell your parents to ignore the list?

[liquidtrend]

porn mode.