We want to help you master Safari. Cult of Mac’s Safari Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of Apple’s web browser on iOS and Mac.
iOS, iPadOS, and macOS allow you to increase font sizes system-wide so that everything you do is easier to see. You can do a similar thing to make your favorite websites easier to read inside Safari.
We’ll show you how to use Page Zoom in this Safari pro tip.
If your vision isn’t too spectacular, increasing font sizes on your Apple devices can make a huge difference to usability. And when you choose a larger font in your settings, that change extends to many of your apps.
However, a larger system font won’t automatically make webpages easier to read in Safari. There’s another setting for that, and we’ll show you how to take advantage of it.
Enable automatic Page Zoom in Safari
Simply follow these steps on iPhone and iPad:
- Open the Settings app.
- Tap Safari.
- Tap Page Zoom.
- Select the Page Zoom preference you would like to use. This will become the default and will apply to all websites.
And follow these steps on Mac:
- Open Safari.
- Click Safari in the menu bar, then click Preferences…
- Under the Websites tab, click Page Zoom.
- You’ll see a list of the sites you currently have open, and you can specify a zoom preference for each if you wish. To set a zoom setting for all sites, look for the drop-down box alongside When visiting other websites.
There are a long list of Page Zoom options, from 50% to 300%, with 100% selected by default. We recommend selecting 115% initially, then visiting a site you find difficult to read, and increasing the zoom again if necessary.
Page Zoom can have inadvertent affects on some websites, and the higher your zoom setting, the more likely you are to run into issues. That’s why it’s best to increase zoom incrementally to find what works best for you.
Change Page Zoom on the fly
You might find a Page Zoom setting that works for you but still run into some websites that are too difficult to read. When this happens, you can change Page Zoom for this particular site on the fly.
On iPhone and iPad, simply tap the Aa button in Safari’s address bar, then use the buttons at the top of the menu to adjust zoom. On macOS, tap View in the menu bar when Safari is open, then click Zoom In.
