How to Remove Thumbnails from Mac Safari New Tab Page?

In our earlier articles we have explained how to remove the embarrassing thumbnails from the home and new tab pages in Chrome and Firefox browsers. Similar to other browsers, Safari also shows thumbnails on the home, new tab and new window pages. Safari shows these thumbnails from the favorites or top sites so cleaning up these icons is easier compared to other browsers.

Favorites Thumbnails

Below is how Safari browser will look like when you open. Depending on the country you purchase your Mac, it will show different thumbnails like Apple, Google, Baidu, etc.

Go to ‘Bookmarks > Show Favorites’ menu to see all those thumbnails shown on the home and new tab pages. Basically those are the thumbnails of the favorite websites. Safari will show these thumbnails on home page when you open the browser and on all new tabs / windows.

If you see Safari showing the recently opened pages then you might have changed the settings to show ‘Top Sites’ on new tab and new window pages.

Delete Thumbnails in Safari

The thumbnails are annoying because they come with the device and not added by us. So the easiest way is to delete the thumbnails you don’t to have on the home and new tab pages. Simply right click on the website’s icon and choose ‘Delete’ to remove that particular thumbnail.

But deleting the icon will remove the favorite from the browser. So that may not be the action you want to do. Also deleting the icons will not solve the problem of showing top sites as the icons will appear when you open a website.

Related: Remove thumbnails from iOS Safari.

Removing Thumbnails from Home and New Tab Page

These thumbnails are privacy killer especially when you use public computer or don’t want others to see your browsing history. At least the favorite icons are smaller showing the favicons of the site. But Safari will show the top sites in 6 / 12 / 24 icons. These top sites icons will be much bigger and clear screenshot of the page you have viewed showing the preview which you may not want anyone to see.

The correct way to remove the thumbnails is to disable them on home and new tab pages instead of deleting them permanently. Press ‘Command + ,’ keys or got to ‘Safari > Preferences…’ menu.

Navigate to ‘General’ tab. Here you will two options:

• New windows opens with – Favorites
• New tabs open with – Favorites

By default the options are setup with ‘Favorites’ to show thumbnail icons of favorite webpages on home and new tab page. You can click on the dropdown and choose ‘Empty page’ for both options.

Also ensure to choose the following two options:

• Safari opens with – A new window
• Homepage – leave it blank

Now you will see a blank empty page whenever you open Safari, new tab page and new window page.

Remember this will not delete any of your favorites. You can still see all your favorites by going to ‘Bookmark > Show Favorites’ or pressing ‘Command + Shift + B’ keys to view the favorites bar.