How to hide Safari's Recently Viewed topics in iOS 27 and macOS 27, a Start Page section Apple's own guide leaves outHow to hide Safari's Recently Viewed topics in iOS 27 and macOS 27, a Start Page section Apple's own guide leaves out

Safari in iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS 27 adds a section to the Start Page that shows recently visited pages grouped into topics, and it can be hidden one topic at a time or switched off entirely.

iDownloadBlog, writing about the released software on 6 October, calls the section Recently Viewed. It builds on another Safari 27 feature that uses Apple Intelligence to sort open tabs into named topics. Each topic appears on the Start Page as a large card. Clicking it reopens every page in the topic, and a small button showing the number of tabs lists them so one can be opened alone. The cards include pages viewed on other devices signed in to the same Apple Account.

How do you hide Recently Viewed in Safari?

To remove one topic, according to iDownloadBlog:

• On a Mac, right-click the topic card on the Start Page and choose Hide Topic.
• On iPhone or iPad, touch and hold the card and choose Hide Topic.

iDownloadBlog warns that there is no confirmation and that undo does not bring a hidden topic back. To turn off the whole section, tap or click Edit on the Start Page and switch off Recently Viewed. On a Mac, right-clicking an empty part of the Start Page and unticking Show Recently Viewed does the same.

What Apple's guide and the beta coverage say

Apple's Safari user guide page on customising the Start Page, read on 6 October with macOS 27 selected, lists Favorites, Suggestions, Privacy Report, Reading List, Recently Closed Tabs, iCloud Tabs and a background image, among others. It does not mention Recently Viewed or hiding a topic. MacRumors' guide to Safari in iOS 27, written during the beta in August, describes a Start Page section called Resume Browsing that brings back recently closed topics and topics open on other devices. That matches what iDownloadBlog describes under a different name, and we have not been able to establish whether Apple renamed it before release.

Our take

This is a small setting with a real privacy point. Earlier Start Pages listed recently closed tabs and iCloud Tabs as plain page titles. Now Safari can put an AI-chosen label on your recent browsing, in large type, on the first screen anyone sees when Safari opens, including browsing done on another device. A topic name can say more than a list of web addresses ever did. On a shared Mac, or on an iPhone handed to someone else, it is worth deciding about deliberately.

The lack of an undo is the detail to remember. Hiding a topic is permanent, so it is the wrong tool for tidying and the right one for something you never want suggested again. For most people who are unsure, APPDOOK suggests switching the whole section off on the iPhone, where the Start Page is small, and leaving it on a personal Mac, where reopening a whole research session in one click is genuinely useful.

Apple's documentation lagging its own software is becoming a theme of Safari 27. Its Apple Intelligence features keep shipping with limits explained in one place and not another, as with Notify Me's unpublished monitoring budget. A Start Page section that shows your browsing deserves a line in the guide that tells you how to turn it off.