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#1 2008-02-07 9:42 am
- stevo4
- Member
- Registered: 2007-06-22
- Posts: 32
Clearing history in search areas
In Safari, i tried using the 'clear history' at the bottom of the 'history' pull down but if i start to type a letter in the search area of say, youtube, google, etc. all the previous things i searched for still show up.
How do i clear that?
Thanks,
stevo
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#2 2008-02-07 1:37 pm
- D'Eyncourt
- OMGDICTATOR

- Registered: 2001-12-27
- Posts: 8808
- Website
Re: Clearing history in search areas
Safari has a number of built-in web sites that appear in the dropdown list when you start typing in an address. If after you clear history and you look carefully through the lists that appear, none of the actual pages that you visited will be in the list and there will be a number of pages that you have never visited (such as scholastic.com when you start with "s").
You can try this: clear history in Safari then go to a specific web page, say, a video on YouTube. If you type in a "y" in the Safari address field, you will see among the other "y" entries that specific YouTube video page. Now if you clear history in Safari and then type in "y" in the address field, you will only see the built-in entries of yahoo.com, yahooligans.com and youtube.com (at least that is what I see in my Safari 1.3.2--still on Mac OS X 10.3.9 on this Mac).
BOYCOTT SONY
"I think the question now is not whether you went to Vietnam or whether you didn't, whether you fought in the war or fought against the war. I think the only question is whether we can find a president smart enough never to make a mistake like that again"--Molly Ivins, way back in 1992
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#3 2008-02-07 1:58 pm
Re: Clearing history in search areas
Aren't those searches stored in cookies? I could be wrong. Try finding the cookie files for the individual sites, and move them to the desktop. Then relaunch safari and try the search again. If those searches don't reappear, then they were stored in that cookie and you'll have to delete it to get rid of them. If they're still theere, then I don't know....
Also note that if you delete a cookie, then all of the info it contains that gets automatically entered for you (like passwords and logins) will disappear, and you'll have to re-enter it when you visit that site again.
"I'd rather be told, 'Have a nice day.' by someone who doesn't mean it, than 'F*** you!' by someone who does." - Lewis Black
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#4 2008-02-07 2:05 pm
- stevo4
- Member
- Registered: 2007-06-22
- Posts: 32
Re: Clearing history in search areas
Well, tried the clear history and reopening/typing in safari and everything is still there. Darn. Being a newb mac person, i don't know where to find the cookies, cache, etc. In the PC world, i can dig below the surface and find stuff easily, but i'm totally lost in the mac world.
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#5 2008-02-07 2:15 pm
Re: Clearing history in search areas
stevo4 wrote:
Well, tried the clear history and reopening/typing in safari and everything is still there. Darn. Being a newb mac person, i don't know where to find the cookies, cache, etc. In the PC world, i can dig below the surface and find stuff easily, but i'm totally lost in the mac world.
Just do a search for "cookies" - that's the easiest way until you know where to look. You should find a few folders (at least one per browser), each containing hundreds of cookie files. Find the ones for the websites in question and move them to a folder on the desktop. Don't delete any files until you're sure you don't need them anymore!
"I'd rather be told, 'Have a nice day.' by someone who doesn't mean it, than 'F*** you!' by someone who does." - Lewis Black
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#6 2008-02-07 2:28 pm
- stevo4
- Member
- Registered: 2007-06-22
- Posts: 32
Re: Clearing history in search areas
Did a search and not much came up besides my "C is for Cookie" song from Sesame street and a few other non related things. the only file that looked appropriate was in my library folder and the file was entitled, cookie.plist.
I moved it to my desktop but the safari URL and the Search box within say, youtube, still populated.
Next suggestions?
thanks for trying!!!
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#7 2008-02-07 2:38 pm
Re: Clearing history in search areas
Hmmm, I'm on a windows machine right now, but I'll see if I can find it when I get home...
"I'd rather be told, 'Have a nice day.' by someone who doesn't mean it, than 'F*** you!' by someone who does." - Lewis Black
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#8 2008-02-07 2:41 pm
- stevo4
- Member
- Registered: 2007-06-22
- Posts: 32
Re: Clearing history in search areas
thanks.
i'm on a macbook pro with tiger 10.4 not leopard or any other animal.
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#9 2008-02-07 2:48 pm
- TheMouthOfSauron
- Member
- From: The Pas, MB, Canada
- Registered: 2002-02-25
- Posts: 659
Re: Clearing history in search areas
In Safari preferences click on Security and then Show Cookies. It will list all of the cookies and allow you to delete them.
"Infinity is not a number! Infinity simply describes the way in which this [function] does not exist."
-Alex Chigogidze
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#10 2008-02-07 2:51 pm
- D'Eyncourt
- OMGDICTATOR

- Registered: 2001-12-27
- Posts: 8808
- Website
Re: Clearing history in search areas
Cookies can be removed within Safari by opening in the menu Safari> Preferences, clicking on the Security tab, clicking on the "Show Cookies" button, then clicking on "Remove All" (yours may be different if you are using a newer version of Safari).
Before doing either of the following, you should first quit Safari.
You can also remove cached Safari items in two places: in {username}> Library> Caches> Safari you will find several folders numbered from 00 to 15. While you can delete these by dragging them to the trash, this Safari folder is deleted when you empty Safari's cache.
There is also {username}> Library> Safari> Icons where you should find a number of folders numbered from 00 to 15. Delete those numbered foldered and NOT the Icons folder.
BOYCOTT SONY
"I think the question now is not whether you went to Vietnam or whether you didn't, whether you fought in the war or fought against the war. I think the only question is whether we can find a president smart enough never to make a mistake like that again"--Molly Ivins, way back in 1992
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#11 2008-02-07 4:15 pm
Re: Clearing history in search areas
You can also go to the Safari menu in your menubar and select Reset Safari.
That gives you a window with a bunch of checkboxes to reset the history, cache, Downloads window, cookies, website icons, saved names and passwords, AutoFill text, and Google searches. Just check the boxes for what you want to clear and then click the Reset button.
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#13 2008-02-07 4:51 pm
- stevo4
- Member
- Registered: 2007-06-22
- Posts: 32
Re: Clearing history in search areas
Ok, not sure what happened, but tried all the suggestions above with no direct result. I did, however drag all the files under <user name>, Library/safari/ and dragged all the files to the desktop. When i'd open safari up things stopped populating in the search box for youtube. I dragged each file one by one back into its place to see if the population would return but even after returning every file, the search box stayed empty. Strange. But at least i was able to clear it out. I still don't know why the standard ways described above wouldn't work.
But thanks all for your help.
steve
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#14 2008-02-07 7:06 pm
- Nefarious
- Tuning Fork
- Moderator

- From: 45°22"N 84°57"W
- Registered: 2002-09-30
- Posts: 7998
Re: Clearing history in search areas
I think you want to clear "forms".
In Safari / Preferences, go to "autofill". Click EDIT for the "forms." Delete any and everything if you like. Close that window. (For extra privacy, go to the Safari menu of Safari and select "Flush cache".)
Then for another bonus, quit Safari. In the Finder, go to Home / Library / Safari. Delete the history.plist file.
Restart Safari.
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#15 2008-02-08 3:22 pm
- tomacorbust
- Member
- From: Daphne, AL
- Registered: 2004-03-07
- Posts: 96
Re: Clearing history in search areas
Nefarious wrote:
I think you want to clear "forms".
In Safari / Preferences, go to "autofill". Click EDIT for the "forms." Delete any and everything if you like. Close that window.
I was trying to figure out how do clear google search boxes a few week ago and the above is how I got it done.
"Progress takes away what forever took to find." D.M.
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#16 2008-02-09 5:28 am
- Light Speed
- Doubter of Einstein

- Registered: 2002-08-17
- Posts: 3694
Re: Clearing history in search areas
Click on the little spyglass in the search field in the menubar.
At the bottom of the dropdown will be an entry "Clear Recent Searches"
Select it.
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