VoiceOver Screen Reader

Safari features built-in support for Apple’s VoiceOver screen reader in OS X. VoiceOver describes aloud what appears on your screen and reads the text and links on websites. Using VoiceOver, you can completely control the computer with the keyboard instead of the mouse.

ARIA Support

Safari supports Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA). The ARIA standard helps web developers make dynamic web content more accessible for people with disabilities. With ARIA, sites taking advantage of advanced technologies like AJAX and JavaScript can now easily interoperate with assistive technologies.

Enhanced Keyboard Navigation

Thanks to the enhanced keyboard navigation options in Safari, you can navigate the web without a mouse. Press the Tab key, and Safari jumps to the next password field, pop-up menu or input field. For increased keyboard control, you can hold down the Option key while tabbing to have Safari skip through every link on the page. And if you press the Return key, Safari opens the highlighted link, letting you ‘point and click’ with just a few keystrokes.

Zoom Text Only

You can choose to zoom in on only the text when you take a closer look at a web page.

Next-Generation Standards Support

Safari continues to lead the way, implementing the latest innovative web standards and enabling next-generation Internet experiences. With support for HTML5 media tags, CSS animation and CSS effects, web designers can create rich, interactive web applications using natively supported web standards. A standards-compliant browser, Safari renders current and future web applications as they were meant to be seen.

Web Audio API New

Developers can create and customise audio effects in web applications with rich media content, such as games or instrument simulators. The Web Audio API provides finer-grained control over the timing of audio playback and allows developers to process audio sources from HTML5 media elements; create spatial sound effects; and synthesise and process audio directly in JavaScript.

CSS Filters New

CSS filters make it simple to create advanced filter and pixel effects such as blurs and gradients. CSS filters can vary brightness, adjust hues, invert colours or convert elements to sepia or greyscale. Developers can combine filters and animate changes between them, while tapping into hardware acceleration for fast, smooth rendering.

CSS Animation

CSS animation — an open standard that brings a new level of interactivity to the web — lets web designers scale, rotate, fade and skew web elements to create cutting-edge websites. Safari was the first web browser to support CSS animation.

CSS Effects

Pioneered by Safari, CSS effects help developers add polish to websites by stylising images and photos with eye-catching gradients, precise masks and stunning reflections that require only a few lines of code.

CSS3 Web Fonts

CSS3 web fonts allow web designers to create stunning websites using the fonts they prefer rather than restricting themselves to ‘web-safe fonts’. Safari was the first web browser to automatically recognise websites that use customised fonts, downloading them as they’re needed.

CSS3 Auto-Hyphenation

Safari allows developers to provide better reading experiences and text layouts with support for CSS3 auto-hyphenation.

CSS3 Vertical Text

Developers can use top-to-bottom text layouts in web pages, allowing for greater customisation of websites in languages that use vertical text, such as Chinese and Japanese.

CSS3 Text Emphasis

With the text emphasis property, web pages can display emphasis marks commonly used in East Asian text.

HTML5 Media Support

Websites can now deliver rich, interactive media as easily as they deliver images. The first browser to support HTML5 audio and video tags, Safari helps developers create media-rich sites that don’t require additional plug-ins. The media tags also offer a rich scripting API, allowing developers to create powerful new controls as well as controls that match the style of the page.

Full Screen for HTML5 Video

You can watch video embedded with the HTML5 <video> tag in full screen. Full-screen support allows standards-based video to deliver a first-class viewing experience.

Closed Captions for HTML5 Video

Safari has support for closed captions in HTML5 video. If an HTML5 video on a web page includes closed captions, simply click the CC button in the video controls to display them.

HTML5 Sandbox Attribute

With support for the sandbox attribute for iframe elements, Safari can restrict the actions of contents hosted inside an iframe. This makes iframes more secure by preventing them from running scripts or loading plug-ins that could deliver unwanted or deceptive content.

WebKit

WebKit — the open-source rendering engine introduced by Apple — powers Safari on OS X and iOS. WebKit features blazing-fast performance and extensive standards support. And because it’s open source, developers can examine WebKit code and contribute to the community.

iCloud Bookmarks

With iCloud, you can add a new bookmark on one device and have it automatically update across all your devices — iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac and PC.

Cover Flow

Using Cover Flow, you can flip through websites as easily as you flip through album art in iTunes. Cover Flow displays your bookmarks and history as large graphical previews, so you can pick out a website instantly.

Drag-and-Drop Bookmark Organisation

Easily rearrange your bookmarks in the bookmarks bar by dragging them to the right or left. As you drag over other bookmarks, they slide away to make room for the one you’re moving.

Integrated Bookmarks Bar

The elegant bookmarks bar is built into the Safari browser window, so your most frequently used bookmarks are always visible without cluttering your screen.

Bookmark Folders

Organise your bookmarks in customised folders, such as News, Resources, Networking, Photos or Blogs. Add, name and arrange them in any bookmark collection. Drag and drop bookmarks directly into a folder to organise your library.

Easy Bookmark Editing New

Edit the names of bookmarks and bookmark folders right there in the bookmarks bar. Click and hold a bookmark or folder and type a new name into the bar.

Reading List

Reading List lets you save web pages to read or browse later. Click the glasses icon on the left side of the bookmarks bar to show or hide your Reading List in the Safari window.

iCloud Reading List

iCloud makes sure that everything in your Reading List automatically appears on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Mac. Turn on Safari in iCloud to access your Reading List on all your devices.

Offline Reading List New

Safari now stores the content from web pages in your Reading List so you can catch up on your reading even when you don’t have an Internet connection. If an article in your Reading List contains multiple pages, Safari fetches the pages ahead of time so you can read the entire article offline.

Add Pages

To add the current web page to your Reading List, click the Share button in the Safari toolbar. When your Reading List is open, click the Add Page button. As you browse the web, Shift-click any link on a page to add it, even when Reading List is hidden.

Article Previews

Your Reading List shows you the title of each web page in the list, the website it appeared on and a text preview of its first lines. If you’ve Shift-clicked a shortened link to add it, Reading List presents the title and website of the link.

Easy Management

When you’re finished reading a web page and no longer want it in your Reading List, hover over the item in your list. An X button appears; click the button to remove the item. Click the Clear All button to remove everything in the list. With iCloud, every edit you make on your Mac automatically updates across all your devices.

Automatic Sorting

Click the All and Unread buttons at the top of Reading List to switch between viewing all Reading List items and viewing only your unread items.

Easy Browsing

To browse through your Reading List, use the scroll bar or Multi-Touch scrolling. Drag the right edge to widen or narrow the Reading List.

Reader Integration

When you select an article in your Reading List, Safari presents a Reader button on the right of the Smart Search Field. Click the button and the article appears without distracting content. You can also zoom, send the article using Mail, and print from the heads-up display that appears in Reader when you hover over the bottom of an article.

Automatic Reader

If you view an item in your Reading List with Reader and then select another item in your list, Safari presents the new item with Reader.

Reading List Mac Integration

You can add pages to your Reading List from Mail and other applications. If someone sends you a link you’d like to read later, secondary-click or Control-click the link and choose Add to Reading List.

Process Architecture

The process architecture in Safari makes browsing more stable and responsive. One process handles all content from the web, while another process handles interactions with the browser interface, such as creating a bookmark or searching history. So an unresponsive web process won't affect the browser, allowing you to keep browsing without restarting Safari.

Safari Reader

As you browse the web, Safari detects if you are on a web page with an article. Click the Reader button that appears on the right of the Smart Search Field and an elegant view of the article appears — without any distracting content.

Continuous Reading

With Safari Reader, you don’t have to click through multiple web pages to reach the end of a long article. Safari Reader displays articles in their entirety, with a scroll bar for easy, continuous reading.

One-Click Emailing

Safari Reader makes it easy to share articles. In Safari Reader, click the envelope icon in the heads-up display to email the article with Mail. The Mail message preserves the continuous, clutter-free layout and includes a link to the article at the top of the message.

Auto-Remove History Items

To keep your browsing history manageable, Safari automatically purges history items older than one month by default. However, to maintain privacy, you can control how much of your browsing history Safari retains. Click General in Safari preferences and choose another option in the Remove History Items pop-up menu.

Powerful Tools

Apple has brought its expertise in OS X and iOS development tools to the web. Safari includes a powerful set of tools that make it easy to debug, tweak and optimise a website for peak performance and compatibility. To access them, turn on the Develop menu in Safari preferences.

Develop Menu

Access all the developer tools in Safari from your menu bar by turning on the Develop menu in the Advanced pane of Safari preferences. You’ll have one-click access to the Web Inspector, Error Console, disabling functions and other developer features.

Snippet Editor

The Snippet Editor makes it easy to test experimental pieces of HTML mark-up. Enter the code into the editor, and Safari renders the results immediately.

Web Inspector

The Web Inspector gives you quick and easy access to the richest set of development tools ever included in a browser. From viewing the structure of a page to debugging JavaScript to optimising performance, the Web Inspector presents its tools in a clean window designed to make developing web applications more efficient. To activate it, choose Show Web Inspector from the Develop menu.

Storage Navigator New

The Storage navigator allows you to manage offline databases, execute SQL queries, and see HTML5 web storage areas and cookie information.

Instrument Navigator New

You can now see the bigger picture when tracking down page performance issues. A single timeline shows you network loads, page layout and rendering, and JavaScript activity.

Issue Navigator New

See errors and warnings in the Issue navigator. You can run automated tests for network utilisation and web page performance, which return suggestions for optimising your website.

Disable Images

Many people use browsers that don’t support images or they configure their browsers to prevent images from loading. As a developer, you can learn how such users experience content on your site by disabling your site’s images in the Develop menu.

Disable JavaScript

Disabling JavaScript lets you experience how your website will behave for users who have disabled JavaScript. Simply choose Disable JavaScript from the Develop menu.

Resource Navigator New

View detailed data about web page resources, including documents, scripts and images.

Search Navigator New

Quickly and easily search all of your HTML, CSS, JavaScript and other web page resources for any string.

High-Fidelity Graphics and Fonts

Safari brings the web to life by delivering the beautiful graphics, fonts and effects you expect from Apple. Your favourite websites have never looked better.

Hardware Acceleration

Hardware acceleration allows Safari to tap into graphics processing units to display computing-intensive graphics, so standards like HTML5 and CSS3 can deliver rich, interactive media smoothly in the browser. Safari also accelerates plug-in content.

Graphics Acceleration for HTML5 Canvas

With Safari, HTML5 Canvas elements on web pages take advantage of hardware acceleration, allowing faster performance for interactive graphics that are rendered natively in the browser. Safari was the first web browser to support HTML5 Canvas, which allows developers to specify an HTML image that can be drawn and scripted using JavaScript.

Anti-Aliased Fonts

Thanks to the anti-aliasing algorithm in Safari, you enjoy crisp, gorgeous fonts. The algorithm preserves the subtleties of each font while rendering each character with a crispness that makes your favourite sites a pleasure to read.

CSS Filters New

CSS filters make it simple to create advanced filter and pixel effects such as blurs and gradients. CSS filters can vary brightness, adjust hues, invert colours, or convert elements to sepia or greyscale. Developers can combine filters and animate changes between them, while tapping into hardware acceleration for fast, smooth rendering.

Default Regional Bookmarks

Safari uses your operating system’s regional settings to determine your location, then customises your bookmarks based on region. As a result, you’ll have the most popular websites in your bookmarks bar no matter where you are.

International Web Content

Safari is designed to handle web content from all regions of the world, including a broad range of alphabets, number systems, writing directions, currencies, weights and measurements, date and time formats, and time zones.

IDN Support

Access sites with non-English web addresses. Safari offers Internationalised Domain Name (IDN) support, which allows web developers to use URLs that contain non-English letters and characters.

International Localisations

Safari is available in 30 languages and can check spelling in 15 languages.

Built-in Sharing New

Share web pages using Mail, Messages, Facebook and Twitter — without leaving Safari.

Share Button New

Built into Safari, the Share button reveals a menu of sharing services. You can also click the Share button to add a web page to your Reading List or bookmarks.

Messages Share Sheet New

Choose Message to send a web page, and a Share sheet with the URL appears in Safari. Start typing in the To field, and Messages autocompletes the names you type with matches from Contacts. Click the blue “+” button to scroll through Contacts or select a Messages buddy.

Facebook Share Sheet New

Post links to Facebook from Safari. Single sign-on sets up Facebook for Safari, so you only need to log in once. The Facebook Share sheet includes space for you to add a comment to your post. You can choose to add a location to your post — just click the Location indicator in the Share sheet.

Tweet Sheet New

The Tweet sheet makes it easy to tweet a web page. Single sign-on sets up Twitter for Safari, so you only need to log in once. The Tweet sheet shows you how many characters you have left as you type. You can give more context to a tweet by adding a location.

Smart Search Field New

Safari now has one field for searches and web addresses, so you can browse the web from one convenient place.

Top Hit

The Top Hit makes it a snap to get to the web page you want. When you type in the field, Safari smartly suggests a web page based on your bookmarks and browsing history, and presents it as a Top Hit — just press Return to select it. Top Hit suggestions change dynamically as you type, and they get more accurate based on the web pages you select. Safari can also present two Top Hits when two web pages from the same site could be a match.

Find

Choose Find from the Edit menu and enter the text you want to find. Safari instantly locates all occurrences of the text on the current web page, shows you how many occurrences it found and highlights every instance.

Bookmark Search

Find your bookmarks instantly with bookmark searching in Safari. You don’t have to remember the name of the site. Safari searches your bookmarks for matching URLs, website names and even website content to find the bookmark you’re looking for. Safari displays the results using Cover Flow, so you can flip through your search results as easily as you flip through album art in iTunes.

Speculative Loading

Safari loads the documents, scripts and style information required to view a web page ahead of time, so they’re ready when you need them.

Full-Page Hardware Acceleration New

Safari now taps into the graphics processor on your Mac to accelerate entire web pages through hardware. 2D drawing of text and graphics is even faster and smoother in Safari.

Faster Performance

Safari speeds up performance on the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark by up to 6 per cent compared with Safari 5.1.¹

Hardware Acceleration

Hardware acceleration allows Safari to tap into graphics processing units to display computing-intensive graphics and animations, so standards like HTML5 and CSS3 can deliver rich, interactive media smoothly in the browser.

Safari Extensions

Customise your web experience with Safari extensions. Created by third-party developers, Safari extensions let you add features to the browser. Install, manage and use extensions simply and easily — without security worries or browser instability.

Safari Extensions Gallery

The Safari Extensions Gallery is a convenient place to find extensions and download them directly from the developer’s website. Featured extensions make it easy to find the most useful extensions to enhance your browsing experience. You can access the gallery from the Extensions pane in Safari preferences or from the Safari menu.

Automatic Updates

Safari checks to see whether there are updates to your extensions and shows you when they are available in the Extensions pane. You can also choose to have Safari install updates automatically.

Sandboxing

All the web content and applications you use in Safari are sandboxed, so they don’t have access to information on your system. If a website contains malicious code intended to capture personal data or tamper with your computer, sandboxing provides a built-in blocker that restricts that code from doing harm.

XSS Auditor

Safari protects you against cross-site scripting (XSS). XSS is a type of exploit in which an attacker tampers with a website, injecting scripts that could capture personal information from users visiting the website. With the XSS Auditor, Safari can filter these scripts to protect you from ones that might be malicious.

Phishing Protection

Safari protects you from fraudulent Internet sites. When you visit a suspicious site, Safari warns you about its suspect nature and prevents the page from loading.

Malware Protection

Safari recognises websites that harbour malware before you visit them. If Safari identifies a dangerous page, it warns you about the suspect nature of the site.

Privacy Pane

The Privacy pane in Safari preferences gives you control over your online privacy, allowing you to clear website data, customise cookie settings, choose whether websites can request your location information or turn on Do Not Track.

Do Not Track New

Safari lets you turn on Do Not Track, an emerging privacy standard. Checking this Privacy pane preference sends websites you visit a request not to track you online. Safari also sends a request to websites not to track you when you use Private Browsing.

View Website Data

In the Privacy pane, Safari lists all the websites that have stored data on your computer and shows you what kind of data is being stored — cookies and Flash plug-in data, as well as information in databases, local storage and the application cache.

Remove Website Data

With Safari, it’s simple to clear away the information that websites might use to track you online. In the Privacy pane, click Remove All Website Data and confirm. Safari removes cookies, Flash plug-in data, and information from databases, local storage and the application cache. You can also clear data on a site-by-site basis.

Location Services Preferences

Safari lets you control how your location information is shared. When you visit a geolocation-enabled website, Safari asks you for permission to share your location. You can choose to have Safari remember your preference for that website for one day, and you can choose to allow a website to access your location without being prompted again. You can also choose to deny permission without receiving a prompt. The Privacy pane of Safari preferences lets you specify how websites can access location services.

Reset Location Preferences

You can clear your location preferences by choosing Reset Safari from the Safari menu and selecting “Reset all location warnings”.

Parental Controls: Logs

See which web pages your children have visited. Open Parental Controls in System Preferences and click Logs to view a list of the sites that were visited and blocked by a specific user account. You can sort your findings by name or date.

Tabbed Browsing

A great way to check several websites at once without cluttering your desktop, tabbed browsing lets you see and switch between multiple websites in a single window. To open a new tab, just click the New Tab button in the tab bar.

Tab View New

Use Multi-Touch gestures to see and switch seamlessly between your tabs.

Pinch to View Tabs New

When you pinch to zoom out on a web page, your gesture zooms the page out even further to reveal a panorama of live web pages.

View Tabs Button New

With a Magic Mouse or trackpad, click the View Tabs button to the right of your open tabs to reveal a panorama view of your tabs. You can also choose Show All Tabs from the View menu or use the Shift-Command-\ keyboard shortcut.

Swipe Through Your Tabs New

In panorama view, use a two-finger swipe on the trackpad to navigate through your open tabs. Tabs slide smoothly left and right. On Magic Mouse, navigate between tabs with a one-finger swipe. You can also use the left and right arrow keys to move through tabs.

Full Screen

Safari lets you immerse yourself in the web. Full-screen Safari uses every available pixel, making browsing on smaller screens more practical than ever. You can take multiple Safari windows full screen, while keeping some windows smaller. You can also adjust the width of web content in full-screen Safari. When you take Safari and other apps full screen, Multi-Touch gestures let you move quickly between your full-screen apps, desktop spaces and Dashboard.

Elegant User Interface

Safari delivers a clean, sleek interface that puts the focus on the web instead of the browser. You see a scroll bar only when you need one. The progress indicator is conveniently located in the web address field. And by default, you see no status bar, giving you more room to browse and view the web.

Tap to Zoom

When you double-tap with two fingers in Safari, web page text and graphics scale up smoothly and text remains razor sharp. Tap again to return to the original size.