How to Delete Frequently Visited Sites on iPhone? [4 Ways]

Whenever you open a new tab on your iPhone’s Safari browser, it suggests those sites you visit so often. This handy feature surely speeds up your browsing experience. However, deleting them sometimes becomes necessary for privacy or to keep your browsing more organized.

So, how do you do that? You have several ways. You can either delete each site one by one long tapping their icons or delete your entire browsing history. Or, if you don’t want your iPhone ever to save those sites, you can also disable the feature altogether.

Let’s show you how to delete frequently visited sites on iPhone in four different ways, covering each step in detail.

What Are Frequently Visited Sites on iPhone?

You may have noticed that your iPhone’s Safari browser has a ‘Frequently Visited’ category just under the ‘Favorites’ that pops up when you open a new tab. Both these categorized folders store the sites you visit more often. 

However, Unlike Favorites, which stores those sites you manually bookmarked yourself, the Frequently Visited section keeps track of all the sites you’ve visited. And it shows the icons of those you are most likely to visit. 

Besides, whenever you type in the address bar, it attempts to autocomplete the site address based on your frequent visits. While this surely is a handy feature, you don’t always want it to tell you what to browse next, do you?

How to Delete Frequently Deleted Sites on iPhone?

So, in case you don’t want your iPhone to pop out those frequently visited sites every time you browse, here are four easy ways to delete them. 

Delete Frequently Visited Sites Individually on Safari

Is it only one or two websites that concern you? If so, it would be better to delete them individually rather than all at once.

We found an article in Business Insider that explained it pretty straightforwardly. And here, we’ve further simplified the process in four easy steps.

• Step 1: Launch Safari and tap the new tab icon (two overlapping squares) from the bottom-right of the screen to open a new tab.

Step 2: Now, when on a new blank tab, you’ll see icons of various sites under both ‘Favorites’ and ‘Frequently Visited.’

• Step 3: Look for the site icon you want to delete under Frequently Visited and press it down until a tiny pop-up shows up.

• Step 4: From that pop-up, simply choose Delete, and that site will be gone from your Frequently Visited list instantly. Now, repeat the same for the others as you’d like.

Delete Frequently Visited Sites by Erasing Browsing History

Deleting each frequently-visited site one by one may not be the best idea when you have so many to remove. Besides, it also gets super annoying when you delete one, and another comes up to take its place (then another, and another).

So, in that case, removing them altogether by erasing your browsing history is your wisest move. However, keep in mind that doing so will also log you out from wherever you’re logged in.

• Step 1: Launch the Settings app and scroll down to find Safari.
• Step 2: Once in the Safari menu, find and tap the option ‘Clear History & Website Data’ under Privacy & Security.

• Step 3: When it asks for confirmation, simply confirm it.

Disable Frequently Visited Sites Entirely

Now, if, for some reason, you decide you’d rather your iPhone doesn’t save your frequently visited websites at all, there’s also the option to switch this feature off.

It might make your typing less predictive as you type in URLs or search for something, but it ensures none are recorded. Here’s how you disable Frequently Visited Sites entirely.

• Step 1: Again, go to the Safari menu from the Settings app.
• Step 2: Under General, you’ll find ‘Frequently Visited Sites’ just under Autofill.

• Step 3: Simply toggle this off, and the sites you visit from now on won’t get listed under Frequently Visited.

Delete Frequently Visited Sites on Google Chrome for iOS

Are you one of those Android users who just switched to an iPhone but still using Chrome as your primary browser? Well, that makes things much easier for you if you’ve already gone through the methods above.

Chrome saves your frequently visited sites just under the Google search/address bar, displaying their icons. Here’s how you can get rid of them.

• Step 1: Tap and press the icon down until a pop-up menu appears.
• Step 2: Select Remove at the bottom of the pop-up to remove that site from your frequently visited list.

• Step 3: However, if they reappear when you type in the address bar, you’ll need to simply tap the ‘x’ icon at the far right of that website address.

Similarly, you can clear up the browsing data if you want to delete those sites altogether. Here’s how.

• Step 1: Tap the three-dot icon at the top-right of a new tab page.
• Step 2: From there, tap Settings and then, Privacy and Security.

• Step 3: Then select the time range (your browsing data either from the last hour, 24 hours, a week, and so on).

• Step 4: Check what you want to delete (history, cookies, cached data, autofill, etc.)

• Step 5: Finally, tap Clear Data at the bottom right.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you have further queries about deleting frequently visited sites on your iPhone? Here, we have answered a few commonly asked questions that may help.

Does clearing search history remove suggested sites from the URL bar?

Unfortunately, no. Some users reported that clearing search history didn’t keep the frequently visited sites from showing up in the URL bar. The only way to prevent this is to clear up your browsing history, as we’ve shown above. 

I deleted frequently visited sites, but they still appear on other Apple devices. Why?

The main reason the deleted sites appear on your iPhone is syncing between your Apple devices via iCloud. However, it can also occur when one device is listed as another’s trusted device.

How can I stop my Apple devices from showing frequently visited sites from other devices?

Since iCloud sync is responsible for this, turning that off may sound like a good idea. However, that can interrupt your synced ecosystem. So, the best you can do is turn off the Frequently Visited feature on all your devices. Also, you can prevent this in the future by browsing incognito.

Conclusion

So, there you have it—some simple yet effective methods to delete the frequently visited sites on your iPhone. Whether clearing out past visits, avoiding future pop-ups, or managing shared device histories, these steps should suffice for your private browsing.

Yet, if privacy is what you prioritize most, the best thing you can do is switch to your iPhone’s incognito mode. Not only does this keep the browser from storing the sites under Frequently Visited, but it also prevents it from storing them in your browsing history.

Also, if you want to keep only a few sites from popping up and not the rest, all you need to do is turn on incognito before browsing those specific websites.