mobile safari

How to drag and drop bookmarklets to the iPad’s bookmarks bar

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Bookmarklets IRL.
Bookmarklets IRL.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Every time I’ve written about bookmarklets, I’ve had to add a section on how to add them to Safari in iOS. On the Mac, you just drag them up to the bookmark bar, and you’re done. On iOS, the situation was so complex that I wrote a whole how-to just so I could link to that, instead of writing several paragraphs every time. But there is a way to drag and drop bookmarklets on iOS.

I’ve tested it on iOS 12 and iOS 13, and it’s amazing.

10 iOS Safari tips you need to know (but don’t)

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Safari iOS 11
Get up to speed with these awesome Safari tips
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The mobile web browser of choice for most iPhone and iPad users is still Safari. As the stock browser for iOS, it has been a staple of the iPhone since its release in 2007, but Safari has a few subtle features you’ve probably never heard of.

With Safari going through so many changes with each new iOS version, some tricks may have sneaked past your attention. In today’s video, we’ll show you 10 killer Safari tricks every iPhone and iPad users needs to know.

How many of these Safari tips have you seen?

Become a Safari search master with quick iOS tip

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Searching within Safari pages is pretty easy, but well-hidden. Photo: Rob LeFebvre
Searching within Safari pages is pretty easy, but well-hidden. Photo: Rob LeFebvre

On the Mac, it’s super-easy to search for a word or phrase within the currently loaded page. You simply hit Command-F on your keyboard and Safari, Chrome or any other web browser will open up a little field to type your search terms into.

But what about when you’re using mobile Safari on your iPhone or iPad? How do you find a specific word or phrase there?

It’s pretty simple, but not super-intuitive. Here’s our recipe for finding search terms on your iPhone’s version of Safari.

Allow Mobile Safari To Store Passwords For All Sites [iOS Tips]

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Safari Passwords

When you browse the web with mobile Safari, you’ll come across sites that ask you to create a login, and that usually requires a password.

You can save your passwords in mobile Safari automatically, but there are some sites that request passwords not be saved. There’s a workaround, though, if you feel like you should be able to save whatever passwords you darn well please, and it’s buried in the Settings app.

One Trick To Close All The Tabs In Mobile Safari At Once [iOS Tips]

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Safari Tabs

On the Mac, you can close all the tabs in Safari (or any browser of your choice, really) with the keyboard combo of Option-Command-W. Hit that, and all the tabs in all the windows open will close at once. It mirrors the Finder command, which will close all Finder windows.

You can swipe away the tabs one at a time when you’re browsing on your iPad or iPhone, but there’s no keyboard command equivalent to close them all at once. How can you close all the tabs you have open in one fell swoop?

How To Find The Reader Button In iOS 7’s Mobile Safari [iOS Tips]

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readerSafari iOS 7

iOS 7 has changed the look and feel of so much on the iPhone and iPad, that some of you may be looking for familiar bits, but find yourselves unable to locate them.

A case in point, here, is the Safari “Reader” button that used to be in the upper right hand side of any Safari window when it was showing a page that was Reader-able. I love Reader, especially on my iPhone, so I went searching for it the minute I upgraded to iOS 7 today.

Here’s where I found it.

Five Ways To Really Master Mobile Safari On Your iPhone And iPad [Feature]

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features_safari

Somehow, Apple managed to cram in a ton of web browsing functionality into a teeny, tiny package called Safari. To distinguish the mobile web browser from the one of the same name on OS X, we’ll call it Mobile Safari and be done with it.

Regardless of the name, the mobile version of Safari is chock full of features both subtle and hidden. Here are five great tips and tricks to help you master Mobile Safari on your own iOS device, whether that be an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Skip The Domain Suffix And Prefix To Get To Websites Faster Via Mobile Safari [iOS Tips]

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Web Prefix Suffix

Want to get to websites faster using mobile Safari? No, I’m not talking about upgrading your internet or data plan to LTE or something, though that will obviously help. No, I’m more interested in showing you how to get to most major websites with just a bit less typing involved.

It’s pretty simple and straightforward, to be honest. Here’s how.

Use The Gmail App To Share Links From Mobile Safari [iOS Tips]

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share via Gmail app

Mobile Safari has a great sharing feature, letting you send a web page to anyone via iMessage, Twitter, Facebook, or email. The bummer thing is, though, that if you hit Mail, your iPhone will wrest control from you and make you send via the built-in iOS Mail App.

But you don’t want to use Mail. You prefer the Gmail app, right? Of course you do. How the heck, then, can you send that adorable picture of a cute pug puppy via email using the Gmail app? With a secret bookmark, of course.

Here’s how.

Turn Off AutoFill On Your iPhone Or iPad For Better Privacy [iOS Tips]

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AutoFill

One of the more useful features of modern browsing, the AutoFill function started on the desktop, then made its way to the iPhone and iPad a while ago. It lets your iOS device hold all the form data, populating the oft-repeated fields with your personal info like your name and address. That way, you don’t have to type it all in all the time, which is brilliant on a mobile device with a small touch-keyboard.

When you share a device like an iPAd, like I do with my kids at home, you may not want to share this personal data. Until a proper multi-user experience comes to iOS, the best way to get around this is to clear out your personal info, and then turn off AutoFill. Here’s how.

Get Mobile Safari To Open Links In The Background [iOS Tips]

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Mobile Safari Background Links

One of the limitations of the iPhone and iPod touch version of Safari has always been a lack of tabbed browsing. Granted, there’s only so much space on the smaller mobile screen, but all the same – tabbed browsing is great.

So is being able to open tabs in the background, so that you can continue reading Cult oF Mac posts, but still save an interesting link in another tab, just like you can on the Mac with a Command-click.

When you tap and hold on any link on a web page, Safari’s default behavior on the iPhone is to ask if you want to open the link, open it in a new page, Add to Reading List, or Copy it. Choosing Open in New Page will do just that, but in the foreground, taking you away from your current web page.

Luckily, with a simple Settings tweak, you can change this default behavior.

Clear Your Browsing History And Web Data From Mobile Safari [iOS Tips]

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Safari Data

With all the sites we visit on a daily basis on our iPhones and iPads, we are capturing and storing where we visit in the background of every web page we see. You may want to clear your browsing history or other stored web data from your iPhone from time to time, if you’re of a security or privacy turn of mind.

iOS makes it fairly simple to do so; here’s how.

Get To Websites Faster With Mobile Safari [iOS Tips]

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mobile Safari shortcut

This one’s for those of you who have to deal with that one person. You know the one? That guy who always reads off the “www” part of web addresses. As in, “go to double-u double-u double-u A-O-L dot com.”

If you want to blow that person’s mind (and maybe get yourself to websites just a bit faster with iOS via Safari’s mobile web browser), here’s how to do it.

View More Of A Webpage On Your iPhone With Full Screen Safari [iOS Tips]

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fullscreen safari

Using the real web on an iPhone is a wonderful thing. Apple has made their iOS browser, Safari, into a solid powerhouse of web-browsing goodness, ready to use out of the box, accessible in many ways to many kinds of people. It’s a great app.

And yet, the size of the iPhone screen, iPhone 5 included, can be a bit cramped. Add in the top address bar and the bottom button bar, and you have even less screen real estate to use for actual browsing. That’s why Apple included a new feature in iOS: full screen browsing.

Open Tabs From Mobile Safari On Your Mac OS X Mountain Lion Machine Via iCloud [OS X Tips]

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iCloud Tabs on Mac OS X Mountain Lion Safari

I got really used to using Chrome on my desktop and laptop Macs before Mountain Lion came out with Safari 6 at its heels. I try to use Chrome on my iOS devices, for the history and bookmark synching, I really do, but more often than not, I end up using mobile Safari, because a) it’s the default for all clicked links in other apps and b) I really, really like Reader.

Now, if you’re using Safari on both your Mac and your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you’ll be pleased to know that you can access the tabs you’ve opened on your iPhone on your Mac, and vice versa, as long as you’re using iCloud. Let’s take a look at how we do this.

Dropbox Adds iOS-Friendly Photo Browser

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Like an app, only without all the pesky local storage requirements.
Like an app, only without all the pesky local storage requirements.

Dropbox photo-sharing just got a little more handy. Now, if you head over to Dropbox.com in Mobile Safari, you get a fantastic new mobile view which lets you swipe and tap your way through your photos.

Why Mobile Safari Doesn’t Have A Unified Address Bar Like In Mountain Lion

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Expect mobile Safari's address bar to look like this for some time.
Expect mobile Safari's address bar to look like this for some time.

One of the improvements Apple made to Safari 6.0 was to take the search and address bars and roll them into one — just like a lot of popular web browsers do. The change hasn’t been made to the mobile Safari app, though, which is puzzling, because it’s a more efficient use of screen space on a smaller display.

But there is a good reason for that omission.

Quickly Activate Mobile Safari’s Private Browsing From Within Safari With Privata Tweak [Jailbreak]

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Isn't that helpful?
Isn't that helpful?

Using mobile Safari’s private browsing mode on an iOS device is a pain, because you have to activate and deactivate via the Settings app. In fact, I’ve always found that it’s just easier to use a third-party browser. But not anymore. If you’ve got a jailbroken iOS device, installing the Privata tweak allows you to switch back and forth between Safari’s private browsing mode within Safari itself.

Open YouTube Videos In Mobile Browser, Not Native App [iOS Tips]

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YouTubeMobile

For the most part, clicking on a youtube video in mobile Safari or Chrome will bring up the YouTube app on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. There are a few reasons why you might not want that to happen, one being that the YouTube app isn’t quite as full featured as the current mobile YouTube site itself, another being the waste of time of switching back and forth between the YouTube app and whatever mobile app you found the link in.

Forcing your iPhone to stay in the app you clicked the YouTube link in is as easy as it is non-intuitive. Here’s how to make it happen.

Get Things Done Even Faster With QuickEntry Shortcut To OmniFocus [iOS Tips]

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Screen Shot 2012-07-11 at 8.35.44 PM

If you use Omnifocus on your iPad to “get things done,” you know that one of the key features of the system is to capture to do items and tasks as quickly and efficiently as possible to your management software (in this case, Omnifocus). If it’s a hassle to add things to your list of things to get done, you probably won’t add them. If you don’t add them, you won’t do them. It’s a vicious circle.

The OmniFocus forums have a sweet shortcut way to add things right to the OmniFocus inbox, with minimal fuss and muss.

Open Sites In Chrome From Safari Without Jailbreaking Your iPhone [iOS Tips]

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Open In Chrome

I don’t know about you, but I’m a huge fan of the mobile version of Chrome on my iPhone and iPad. I use Chrome for Mac almost exclusively, and having all my bookmarks and browsing history available to me on the go is really the killer feature.

Alex has already shown you how to set Chrome as the default browser if you have a jailbroken iOS device, but what about those of you (like me) who don’t want the hassle of a jailbreak? How can we quickly hop over to Chrome on our iPhone? Turns out, it’s pretty easy.

New York Post Quietly Scraps Its Paywall For iPad Users Using Mobile Safari

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You can now access the New York Post website on iPad for free.
You can now access the New York Post website on iPad for free.

The New York Post introduced a paywall last year that meant iPad users accessing its website with mobile Safari would be redirected to its official iPad app, and would then have to pay a monthly subscription fee to access its content. However, it has now performed a complete u-turn and scrapped that paywall completely.