• PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
  • EDIT Edit this Article
  • EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
  • Browse Articles
  • Learn Something New
  • Quizzes Hot
  • This Or That Game New
  • Train Your Brain
  • Explore More
  • Support wikiHow
  • About wikiHow
  • Log in / Sign up
  • Computers and Electronics
  • Internet Browsers
  • Safari Browser

How to Enable Cookies in Safari

Last Updated: March 16, 2024 Tested

This article was written by Luigi Oppido and by wikiHow staff writer, Nicole Levine, MFA . Luigi Oppido is the Owner and Operator of Pleasure Point Computers in Santa Cruz, California. Luigi has over 25 years of experience in general computer repair, data recovery, virus removal, and upgrades. He is also the host of the Computer Man Show! broadcasted on KSQD covering central California for over two years. The wikiHow Tech Team also followed the article's instructions and verified that they work. This article has been viewed 577,896 times.

Cookies are enabled by default in Safari on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad. If the features of a certain website aren't working properly or you're getting errors about cookies, you may have disabled cookies in your settings. This wikiHow article will teach you how to allow cookies in Safari, and show you what to do if cookies aren't working properly.

Things You Should Know

  • Open Safari on your Mac. Go to Safari > Preferences… > Privacy and uncheck "Block all Cookies".

iPhone Settings App Icon

  • Try clearing your cookies if you are having trouble loading websites—sometimes old cookies get in the way of saving the new version of a cookie.

Enabling Cookies on a Mac

Step 1 Open Safari and click the Safari menu.

  • In most cases, you'll probably want to leave a checkmark in front of this option to preserve your privacy. However, if websites aren't loading properly or you can't use the features of certain sites, you may need to enable this option.

Enabling Cookies on iPhone and iPad

Step 1 Open your Settings icon.

  • In most cases, you'll probably want to leave this switch on, as this protects your privacy. However, if websites aren't loading properly or you're unable to use features of certain sites, you can enable this option and see if it resolves the problem.

Troubleshooting

Step 1 Fix the error

  • Mac: Click the Safari menu, select Preferences , click Privacy , and then remove the checkmark from "Prevent cross-site tracking."
  • iPhone/iPad: Open your Settings , tap Safari , and then toggle the "Prevent Cross-Site Tracking" switch to the Off (white) position.

Step 2 Turn off private browsing mode.

  • First, check to make sure private browsing is not always set to turn on—click the Safari menu, select Preferences , click General , and click the "New windows open with" menu. [6] X Research source If "A new private window" is selected, choose A new window instead.
  • Then, to open a new window, just close the currently open Safari window, click the File menu, and then select New Window .
  • iPhone/iPad: Open Safari and tap the overlapping squares at the bottom. [7] X Research source Tap Private at the bottom (if you see it), select (number of) Tabs , and then tap Done .

Step 3 Clear your cookies.

  • Mac: Click the Safari menu, click Preferences , click Privacy , click Manage Website Data , and then click Remove All .
  • iPhone/iPad: Open Settings , tap Safari , tap Advanced , select Website Data , and then tap Remove All Website Data . [8] X Research source

Community Q&A

Community Answer

  • Enabling cookies can often allow you to view and have access to a larger number of websites that require cookies in order to function or display properly. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
  • Despite their poor reputation, cookies aren't inherently malicious. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

allow cookies safari

You Might Also Like

Delete Cookies Using the Safari Web Browser

  • ↑ https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/manage-cookies-and-website-data-sfri11471/mac
  • ↑ https://support.apple.com/en-us/105082
  • ↑ https://support.ewu.edu/support/solutions/articles/10000057364-how-do-i-disable-prevent-cross-site-tracking-in-safari-
  • ↑ https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/use-private-browsing-ibrw1069/mac
  • ↑ https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203036

About This Article

Luigi Oppido

1. Open Safari. 2. Click the Safari menu 3. Click Preferences... . 4. Click the Privacy tab. 5. Remove the checkmark from "Block all cookies." Did this summary help you? Yes No

  • Send fan mail to authors

Is this article up to date?

Am I a Narcissist or an Empath Quiz

Featured Articles

Convince Your Parents

Trending Articles

8 Reasons Why Life Sucks & 15 Ways to Deal With It

Watch Articles

Fold Boxer Briefs

  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Info
  • Not Selling Info

wikiHow Tech Help Pro:

Level up your tech skills and stay ahead of the curve

Enable Cookies in Safari

Updated at: Feb 19, 2022

This guide will step you through the process of getting Cookies enabled in Safari on macOS.

Enable Cookies

Click the "safari" menu.

Make sure you have a Safari window open and active; you will see the "Safari" menu in the top left of your screen. Click it and it will expand to show Safari specific options.

The location of the Safari menu - in the top left of the screen

Click the "Preferences" menu item

Now that you have expanded the Safari menu, you will see the Preferences item - click on it.

The expanded Safari menu, showing the the Preferences item

The Safari Preferences screen will now appear.

Click the "Privacy" tab

The Safari Preferences screen has a number of sections, indicated by the various options along the top of the screen (General/Tabs/AutoFill etc). Click the Privacy item to see privacy related options.

The Preferences window, showing the Privacy tab

Choose your preferred Cookies and tracking settings

On the Privacy Preferences tab, you will see the " Website tracking: " and " Cookies and website data: " checkboxes.

The contents of the Safari Privacy tab.

Enabling Prevent cross-site tracking blocks third-party cookies from being set as well as third-party websites from storing data on your computer. Enabling this option is a good step in helping prevent companies from tracking your activity online.

Enabling Block all cookies will prevent block First-Party cookies, as well as Third-Party cookies. Enabling this may cause websites to not work properly, and Safari will warn you about this if you choose this option.

A good balance of settings is to enable Prevent cross-site tracking and disable Block all cookies .

If you click the Manage Website Data button you'll see a list of website domains which have stored data on your computer. You can remove some or all of them.

Close the Preferences window

Once you have configured your cookie blocking preferences, you can simply close this window and continue using Safari.

The red Close button for the Preferences window.

Congratulations, you just configured Cookies in Safari. Click here to check if Cookies are enabled.

You may also want to take a moment to clear your cookies and history in Safari .

Safari and Third-Party Cookies

After extensive testing and debugging, we have found that when you enable Block cross-site tracking in Safari it will still hold on to the third-party cookies and keep using them until you restart Safari.

So if you choose to enable Block cross-site tracking in Safari, make sure you restart (and preferably Reset Safari) to ensure that it doesn't keep using any third party cookies it may have cached.

Safari Logo

More guides and help for Safari

Need more help with Safari? Read our other Safari guides .

Clear cache & history

Do i need to clear my cache.

Not sure why you've been asked to clear your cache? We can explain. Why you need to clear your cache

What is a cache?

Before you consider clearing your browser cache, you should know what it is! Learn a little bit about browser caches

Is it safe to clear my cache?

Are there any risks to clearing your cache? Find out if it's ok to clear your cache

Update my web browser

Do i need to update my browser.

Find out if your browser is out of date Is my browser out of date?

Why should I update my browser?

There are very good reasons to, find out here! Why update your browser?

Is it free to update Chrome?

Find out about the cost of updating Chrome... Does Chrome cost anything?

What does "Update browser" mean?

What does it actually mean? What does it mean to update your browser

Get help with our guides

How to enable javascript.

Change your JavaScript settings Guide to enabling Javascript

How to enable Cookies

Configure your cookie settings for privacy Guide to enabling cookies

Related articles

I can't log in to a website..

We've got a detailed guide to help you solve login problems How to fix website log in problems

Why do websites use cookies?

Why are cookies useful? Do you need them? What's the deal with cookies?

How to update your browser

Old software puts you at risk. Keep your browser fresh and up to date

Clear Cache, Cookies and History

How to reset your browsing history How to reset your browser

Try a different web browser

Different web browsers have different features - try a different one to see if you prefer it. Experiment a bit!

Use a VPN to hide your IP address

We recommend NordVPN to hide your IP address or to unblock websites. Hide your IP Address

IMAGES

  1. How to enable cookies in safari

    allow cookies safari

  2. 4 Ways to Enable Cookies in Safari

    allow cookies safari

  3. How to Enable Cookies in Safari / Firefox / Chrome on a Mac

    allow cookies safari

  4. Enable Third-party Cookies on Safari [Mac

    allow cookies safari

  5. 4 Ways to Enable Cookies in Safari

    allow cookies safari

  6. How to enable cookies on iPad in Safari or Chrome?

    allow cookies safari

VIDEO

  1. safari #cookies #cake #diy #giraffe

  2. How to delete the history and cookies of Safari for the iphone

  3. Block all cookies in Safari 2024

  4. Junior Safari Cookies Unboxing

  5. How to Enable Cookies in Safari

  6. Block Cookies on Safari iPhone iOS 17

COMMENTS

  1. 3 Ways to Enable Cookies in Safari

    Manage Safari cookies for Apple devices. You can manage how cookies are handled in Safari. You can set the restriction to Always Allow or one of these options: Prevent cross-site tracking. Block all cookies. User action. Enabled. Enabled. Can’t disable either setting.

  2. Enable Cookies in Safari on macOS

    Enable Cookies. Click the "Safari" menu. Make sure you have a Safari window open and active; you will see the "Safari" menu in the top left of your screen. Click it and it will expand to show Safari specific options. Click the "Preferences" menu item. Now that you have expanded the Safari menu, you will see the Preferences item - click on it.