Show full URLs in Safari’s address bar on macOS [Pro tip]

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Show full URLs in Safari's address bar
Don't let Safari cut your URLs short.
Image: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

Safari pro tips bugWe 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.

Sometimes it’s handy to see complete URLs in Safari’s address bar, but they get shortened automatically for the sake of cleanliness. The good news is there is a way to prevent that from happening in macOS.

We’ll show you how in today’s Safari pro tip.

In the latest versions of Safari, you’ll see only a website’s name in the address bar. So, if you were to visit www.cultofmac.com/category/news, Safari will display only “cultofmac.com.” It doesn’t have to be that way.

On macOS, you can have Safari display full, unshortened URLs instead.

How to display complete URLs in Safari’s address bar

Simply follow these steps:

  1. Open Safari.
  2. Click Safari in the menu bar, then click Preferences…
  3. Under the Advanced tab, enable Show full website address.
Show full URLs in Safari's address bar
Enable “Show full website address.”
Screenshot: Cult of Mac

There’s only so much room in Safari’s address bar, so you may find that particularly long URLs still get cut — especially if you tend to use smaller Safari windows. But in most cases, you should now see complete URLs.

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