How to Hide Frequently Visited Sites in Safari on iOS 9

If you’re not a fan of how Safari shows which websites you recently visited on the main Safari page, here’s how to hide frequently visited sites in Safari on iOS 9.

iOS 9 was released last week and while it comes with the same overall look and feel as iOS 8, it arrives with a handful of new features, including Siri improvements, new Spotlight Search capabilities, and new multitasking functionality on the iPad.

There are also a handful of smaller features in iOS 9 as well, including lowercase keys on the keyboard, moving the cursor by swiping on the screen, and also the ability to hide frequently visited websites in Safari.

Frequently visited websites show up on the main Safari page after your iPhone or iPad detects that you’ve visited those sites regularly over the course of a few days. Having them show up on the main page makes it easier to go back to these websites without having to enter in the URL every time.

However, if you’re like me and already have your most frequently visited websites bookmarked or favorited, then there’s really no need to have frequently visited websites appear again in Safari.

The good news is that Apple has heard you loud and clear, and in iOS 9 users can now hide this section in Safari on their iPhone or iPad.

Here’s how to hide frequently visited sites in Safari on iOS 9.

Hiding Frequently Visited Sites in iOS 9

If you can believe it, jailbreakers running on older versions of iOS have been able to hide frequently visited sites in Safari using a simple tweak, and Apple has been notorious for incorporating these ideas into iOS and making them default features.

Luckily, hiding frequently visited sites was one feature that the company thought users would enjoy and it’s now available in iOS 9.

To hide frequently visited sites in Safari on your iPhone or iPad, simply navigate to Settings > Safari and find Frequently Visited Sites in the list. From there, tap on the toggle switch next to it to turn it off.

That’s all there is to it! From now on, the main Safari page will only show you websites that you added to your Favorites.

If you want to edit the sites that appear in your Favorites, that’s pretty easy to do as well.

Simply just tap on the Bookmarks icon up in the toolbar and then select Favorites. You’ll see a list of the websites that you have saved in your Favorites, and all you have to do is tap on Edit at the bottom and then tap on the red circle and hit Delete. This will remove that website from your Favorites and it will no longer appear on the main Safari page.

However, if you still want to save a website for quick access, but just don’t want to put it in Favorites, you can save it as a Bookmark instead.

Simply navigate to the website that you want to bookmark and then head up to the Share button in the upper-right corner. It’s the one with an arrow pointing up and sticking out of a square.

A smaller window will pop up, and you will see a button that says Add Bookmark with an image of a book. Select that button and you’ll then be able to edit the name of the site and change it to how you want it to appear in your Bookmarks.

Also note the location of the bookmark, as it will default to Favorites. Tap on this and select Bookmarks instead.

Hit Save and you’re good to go. The website will appear in your Bookmarks but won’t show up on the main Safari page.