Opened a new Safari tab lately and been surprised to see your old searches front and center? That’s a new feature in iOS 18.4 – and not everyone’s thrilled about it.
Apple recently updated Safari’s behavior so that whenever you tap the address bar in a new tab, your most recent search results are displayed in full. That might be handy if you’re the only one using your iPhone and often revisit old queries.
But some might find it intrusive, especially if you have a partner who sometimes borrows your phone to look something up, and you’re in the habit of asking Google semi-embarrassing questions. In theory, anyone who picks up your phone and taps the search bar would see a full list of your previous searches.
This behavior is switched on by default, but thankfully, Apple included a toggle to turn it off. Here’s how to revert to the previous behavior:
How to disable recent searches
Open the Settings app, scroll down to Apps, find Safari in the list and tap it. Scroll down and toggle off Show Recent Searches. That’s it!
Once that’s done, Safari will stop displaying your recent searches when opening new tabs. You’ll be back to the old experience: search bar up top, keyboard ready, and no history on display.
How to clear recent searches
Maybe you want to keep the new feature but clear things out occasionally. You can do that too.
Open a new Safari tab and tap the search bar. When your recent results appear, tap Clear All at the top. This wipes the list clean – though it’ll start filling up again as you use Safari.