How to Delete and Recover Safari History on iPhone

How to Clear Safari Search and Browsing History on iPhone (and Recover Deleted History)

When you browse the web on your iPhone, Safari keeps a record of your search history, and stores other website data like cache and cookies. This data can make revisiting sites quicker, but it can also pose privacy concerns and take up storage space on your device.

In this guide, we'll show you how to clear your Safari history, search data, cache and cookies on iPhone, as well as how to find and recover deleted Safari history if you need to access it again.

You can easily delete all Safari data (history, cookies and cache) at once or choose what to delete on your iPhone. If you need more control, you can delete individual items from your search history.

Before you start deleting, you may want to export your browsing history to your computer using TouchCopy, in case you need to refer to it later. TouchCopy is a Windows and Mac app that lets you selectively save Safari history as HTML, CSV or Shortcuts, as well as back up your iPhone bookmarks.

Once deleted, your browsing history is permanently removed from your iPhone and it is much trickier to recover without a backup.

Delete Internet History, Cookies and Cache

To delete all Safari data at once:

1. Open Settings on your iPhone.
2. Go to "Apps", then "Safari".
3. Tap "Clear History and Website Data".
4. Select a timeframe ("Last hour", "Today", "Today & yesterday" or "All history").
5. Confirm by tapping "Clear History".

Safari history, cookies and cache can take up significant storage space on your iPhone. Clearing all this data helps reclaim device storage and improve performance. Check out our other guide if you want to free up more space on your iPhone.

Delete Individual Items from Search History

1. Open Safari on your iPhone.
2. Tap the more icon (•••).
3. Select "Bookmarks" and then the "History" tab.
4. Tap the more icon (•••) again and choose "Select Websites".
5. Select the websites you want to delete and tap the bin/trash button.

Delete Cookies and Cache

To delete cookies and cache without deleting your browsing history, you can follow these steps:

1. Open Settings on your iPhone.
2. Go to "Apps", then "Safari".
3. Tap "Advanced" and then select "Website Data".
4. Tap "Remove All Website Data" and finally tap "Remove Now".

Once you delete your Safari history, it's removed from your iPhone and can't be viewed in Safari again. However, in some cases, you may still be able to recover it—either from data stored on your device or from an iPhone backup.

If you think you might need access to your browsing history later, it can be useful to save a copy to your computer before deleting it.

How to Find Deleted Safari History

Although deleted internet history is gone from Safari on your iPhone, you can find limited history in the Screen Time feature.

In Screen Time, you can see a list of the website domains visited by date, and how long was spent viewing those particular websites. If you need more details information like the exact pages visited, you'll need to extract that from a backup, or restore your device from a backup.

1. Open Settings on your iPhone.
2. Go to "Screen Time".
3. Tap "See All App & Website Activity".
4. Select the date range and view the websites visited via Safari.

Only websites you visited in Safari will be shown in Screen Time - history from other browsers like Chrome and Edge is not listed.

How to Recover Deleted Safari History from a Backup

If you need more accurate data, including specific webpage URLs and titles, you can use a tool like iBackup Extractor. This lets you view and recover your Safari history from iPhone backups on your computer, without needing to restore your entire device.

iBackup Extractor can access Safari history from iPhone backups created with iTunes, Finder, or the Apple Devices app.

You can explore backups for free and save unlimited history and bookmarks on Windows, or up to 20 items on Mac.

1. Download and install iBackup Extractor on your PC or Mac.
2. Launch the app and select the iPhone backup containing your desired internet history.
3. Click "Internet" and select "Safari History".
4. Select the items you need (all, by date, or individual sites).
5. Click "Copy" to save the selected history to your computer.

What Internet information can you recover?

iBackup Extractor can recover all the important details for your Safari history, including visited website URLs and titles and the dates and times they were accessed.

You can also extract Bookmarks from your iPhone backups, for major browsers like Safari, Chrome, and Edge.

What formats can you save your recovered Safari history in?

• Web Pages: A list of your selected websites, in HTML format, that you can open in your web browser. The history is organized by dates, and each date contains clickable links for each item, helpfully shown with the title of the webpage.
• CSV file: A comma-separated values file that contains your recovered Safari history in a tabular format. A CSV export contains the URL and title of each webpage, as well as the date and time each page was visited.
• Shortcuts: Saves each website as a shortcut that you can use to quickly open the webpage in your computer's internet browser.

Try iBackup Extractor for free today!

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How to Restore Deleted Safari History from a Backup

Restoring your iPhone from a backup that contains the deleted Safari history will bring back the history to your device. This requires you to have a backup of your device (made with iCloud, iTunes or Apple Devices) from before you deleted the history.

You can restore your iPhone from an iCloud backup from your iPhone itself; or from a local backup on your computer with iTunes, Finder or the Apple Devices app. Check out Apple's guide for full details on restoring an iPhone.

Once restored, you can view your recovered history in the Safari app.

How to view Safari Internet History on iPhone

1. Open the Safari app.
2. Tap the more icon (•••).
3. Select "Bookmarks" and then the "History" tab.

Managing your Safari history on iPhone is simple once you know where to look. We've covered how to delete browsing history to maintain privacy, free up storage by clearing cache and cookies, and recover deleted history from a backup.

Built-in iPhone and Safari Settings make deleting website data quick and easy. However, it can be trickier to recover history that you've accidentally deleted. You're in a great position if you have a backup of your iPhone, as iBackup Extractor can safely retrieve deleted Safari history without restoring your entire device.

Looking to the future, consider regularly backing up your iPhone or saving your Safari history before deleting it - this gives you a solid safety net and prevents further data loss. If you're looking for a reliable way to regularly and selectively back up data from your iPhone, iPad or iPad, check out TouchCopy.

How do I delete Safari history on iPhone?

Go to Settings > Apps > Safari, then tap "Clear History and Website Data". Choose a timeframe and confirm. This will remove your browsing history, cookies, and cache.

Why are the options to clear history or web data greyed out?

If the button is grey and disabled, this means there is either no data to clear, or your web content is restricted in Settings > Screen Time.

How far back does Safari history go on iPhone?

Safari on iPhone stores browsing history for up to 30 days. Older history may be removed automatically. Safari on Mac can store browsing history for up to 1 year.

Can you recover deleted Safari history on iPhone?

Yes - You can recover full browsing history from an iPhone backup using tools like iBackup Extractor, or view limited data via Screen Time on the iPhone itself.

What is the safest way to recover deleted Safari history?

The safest method is to extract it from a backup without restoring your device, using a tool like iBackup Extractor. This allows you to recover only the data you need without overwriting your current iPhone data.