How to Get Rid of Top Hit in Safari iPhone and Mac?

Modern web browsers have incorporated some nifty features that make it relatively easy and efficient to carry out the intended tasks. More often than not, these functionalities are welcomed with open hands by everyone alike.

However, in some instances, it could well spell out an infuriating experience for some users. And the Top Hit feature of the Safari Browser probably falls in this domain.

For the unaware, as soon as you type in the keyword in the search bar, the browser will automatically bring up its related site as the first result in the Top Hit.

It also preloads that page so that when you click on that result, you shouldn’t have to wait for the page to load.

In hindsight, all this results in the faster loading of the sites, which saves our precious time, so where’s the issue?

Well, the thing is, it’s not every time that one always clicks on the first results in the search result. But since the browser would load it anyways, it leads to quite a few issues.

First, your workflow will be uninterrupted with search results that you are least interested in. For example, one of my friends lives in Singapore and wants to access Apple’s site corresponding to his region only. Unfortunately, the browser would always show the root site first, followed by what he intends to visit.

Moreover, the automatic pre-loading of the first search results (which you have no plan to interact with) would also lead to unnecessary network bandwidth consumption. Not to mention that your data would now be in the hands of even more websites, most of which would be the ones you wouldn’t have even opened.

There are quite a few problems lined up with this feature; hence, many users are looking to get rid of the Top Hit feature in their Safar browser. If you are on the same page, this guide shall help you.

Remove Top Hit in Safari Mac

There isn’t any universal toggle that would straightaway turn off this feature. However, there do exist a few workarounds that have been known to work out for many users. And you can also turn off the pre-loading of top hits to save bandwidth.

The Top Hit retrieves the site URL suggestion from the saved bookmarks/favorites, browsing history, and reading list. The Top Hit suggestion will be removed if you clear all these stored data.

Here are the steps to turn off top hits in Safari mac:

1. Launch the Safari browser app on a mac computer.
2. Select History from the menubar options.
3. Choose the Clear History… option under the History menu.
4. It will open the Clear History dialog window.
5. From the drop-down, select the date range that you want to delete.
6. Hit on the Clear History command button to remove history from Safari.
   

However, if you wish to take a more aggressive approach, consider deleting your entire search history. Doing so will delete all the autocompleted URLs.

There’s no direct approach to carrying out this task, and deleting the search history seems to give out the best mileage for rectifying this issue.

You can follow this guide to manage bookmarks/favorites and reading lists in the Apple Safari browser. Once you remove the site from the Bookmarks and Reading list, it won’t appear on the Top Hit.

To stop preloading Top Hits, visit the Safari Preferences menu and switch to the Search tab. Disable the checkbox for Preload Top Hit in the background option.

Disable Top Hit in Safari iPhone

Similarly, we can also clear history, bookmarks, and reading lists from Safari on iPhone to stop Top Hit suggestions.

Turning off this feature on iOS is a two-step process. It calls for disabling the Top Hit feature and then deleting your search history, as outlined below:

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Select Safari from the list and go to its Search section.
3. Within that, disable the Preload Top Hit toggle.
   
4. Once that is done, go back to the Safari settings.
5. Tap on the Clear History and Website Data options.
   
6. Confirm to clear history and website data.

That’s it; combining both these tweaks should be enough to prevent the Top Hits from appearing in Safari’s search bar.

It would help if you also considered deleting the Safari bookmarks from your iPhone.

Bottom Line: Safari Top Hits Suggestion

So with this, we conclude the guide on how to get rid of the Top Hits in the Safari browser on Mac and iPhone. The underlying issue seems to be the browser’s behavior to load the site’s root directory first, followed by its sub-directories.

For example, if you prefer to visit www.example.com/abc, it would still show www.example.com as the first result in the Top Hits.

On Top of all this, the lack of a direct approach to disable this feature might infuriate the users even further. Safari should have the explicit option to disable the Top Hit feature under the Search section, just like Preload Top Hit option.

Fortunately, the workarounds mentioned in this guide seem to rectify this issue. With that said, if you still have any queries, do let us know.