How to Customise the Safari Start Page in macOS Big Sur

Add a nice background to Safari, and change how the start page looks.

By Pranay Parab | Updated: 25 March 2021 20:29 IST

How to Customise the Safari Start Page in macOS Big Sur

One of macOS Big Sur's big features is the ability to customise Safari's start page

Highlights

You can add a new wallpaper to Safari's start page
You can remove elements you don't like to see
Safari's privacy report can be placed on the start page

One of the best new Safari features in macOS Big Sur is the ability to customise the Start Page in Safari. It's a small but useful addition to the default Web browser on macOS, which has increasingly been focusing on privacy. The start page is where you see all your bookmarks, frequently visited websites, etc. You can now decide which elements show up on this page, and even add a nice wallpaper in the background. Here's how you can do that.

Open Safari on your Mac.
In the menu bar at the top, go to Bookmarks and then click Show Start Page.
You will now see the start page in Safari. In the bottom-right corner, you will find a Settings icon. Click that.
You can now select how you want your start page to look. There are six options here — Favourites, Frequently Visited, Privacy Report, Siri Suggestions, Reading List, and Background Image.
Uncheck the stuff you don't want on the start page. We didn't want a list of frequently visited websites, so we removed that, but you can choose different options based on your preferences.
Finally, let's add a nice background image here. Right below the Background Image option in start page settings (mentioned in step 3), you will see a box with a plus icon. If you want to add your own wallpaper, click that plus icon and add any image.
If you'd rather choose Apple's background images, scroll to the right in the background images section of Safari's start page settings. Here you'll find a few nice wallpapers and you can select whichever you like.

That is how you can quickly customise Safari's start page on macOS Big Sur.

For more tutorials, visit our How To section.

Is MacBook Air M1 the portable beast of a laptop that you always wanted? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For details of the latest launches and news from Samsung, Xiaomi, Realme, OnePlus, Oppo and other companies at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, visit our MWC 2025 hub.

Further reading: macos, macOS Big Sur, Safari