How to Separate Your iPhone Browsing Habits With Safari Profiles - MacRumorsOpen MenuShow RoundupsShow Forums menuVisit ForumsOpen Sidebar
Skip to Content

How to Separate Your iPhone Browsing Habits With Safari Profiles

by

In iOS 17, Safari has gained a new feature called Profiles, which is designed to help separate your browsing sessions into things like Work, School, or Personal. Here's how to use it in the beta and when iOS 17 is released to the general public later this month.

iOS 17 General Safari Feature
In ‌iOS 17‌, Apple expands on Tab Groups with a Profile feature that is designed to let you separate your browsing for different use cases. You can create a "Work" profile and a "Personal" profile, for example, so all of your work-related browsing is kept separate from your personal browsing.

Each profile gets its own icon and silos your history, Tab Groups, Favorites, Private Browsing tabs, and cookies. You can even assign specific extensions to different profiles to optimize your browsing experience based on the task at hand.

How to Create a Safari Profile

To set up profiles on iPhones running iOS 17, simply follow these steps:

  1. Open the Settings app on you iPhone or iPad.
  2. Scroll down to Safari.
  3. Under the "Profiles" section, tap New Profile.
  4. Select an icon, name, and background color for the profile.

  5. Choose your settings for Favorites and New Tabs.
  6. Tap Done.

safari

When you create a new profile, your device will automatically generate a "Personal" profile to differentiate other browsing sessions conducted outside of the profile you created.

Both profiles and additional ones you create can be edited in the same section of the Settings app. When editing an existing profile, you can also opt to enable any Safari extensions you have installed on your device, as well as delete the profile if desired.

How to Switch Between Profiles in Safari

  1. In Safari, tap the Tabs icon with two overlapping squares.
  2. Tap the middle icon to bring up the active profile's menu.
  3. Tap the Profile option to change which profile is active.

safari

The Safari Profiles feature is available in iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS Sonoma, as well as being part of Safari 17 for macOS Monterey and macOS Ventura. Any profiles you create will be synced across devices logged into the same Apple ID.

Tag: Safari
Related Forums: iOS 17, iPadOS 17

Top Rated Comments

Agent OrangeZ Avatar
36 months ago
Why not just give us user profiles for the WHOLE DEVICE? (because that would just make too much sense)
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Rygaard Avatar
36 months ago
how about Google maps 5 hours of driving with GPS dont count towards SCREENTIME ??
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TheMacDaddy1 Avatar
36 months ago
I wish they would bring back Safari for Windows. I have to use Windows at work sometimes and because I do I use Chrome across Mac and Windows.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
WarmWinterHat Avatar
36 months ago

how about Google maps 5 hours of driving with GPS dont count towards SCREENTIME ??
Yes! Let us exempt certain apps from Screentime. Waze for me.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
fwmireault Avatar
36 months ago
I am on the beta, the feature is nicely implemented! You can tie a profile to your focus mode, which is quite useful
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Pinkyyy 💜🍎 Avatar
36 months ago
Looking forward to both this feature and Web Apps on Sonoma. Hopefully they both work as intended !
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

MacBook Pro Low Angle Wide Lens

macOS 27: Two More Changes Leaked Ahead of WWDC Next Month

Sunday May 10, 2026 9:45 am PDT by
macOS 27 will have a "slight redesign" compared to macOS Tahoe, according to the latest word from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said the design changes will help to improve the readability of macOS Tahoe's Liquid Glass interface:If you've used Tahoe, you're likely familiar with some of the quirks — particularly the transparency effects and shadows that...
Aston Martin CarPlay Ultra Screen

Apple Says CarPlay Ultra is Coming to These Vehicle Brands

Thursday May 21, 2026 11:53 am PDT by
Last year, Apple launched CarPlay Ultra, the long-awaited next-generation version of its CarPlay software system for vehicles. Nearly a year later, CarPlay Ultra is still limited to Aston Martin's latest luxury vehicles, but that should change fairly soon. In May 2025, Apple said many other vehicle brands planned to offer CarPlay Ultra, including Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis. CarPlay Ultra...
iphone 18 pro blue%402x

iPhone 18 Pro: Dark Cherry, Light Blue, and Dark Gray Chassis Leaked [Update]

Thursday June 4, 2026 5:18 am PDT by
Update: Since publication, new information has come to light suggesting the images have been AI-manipulated and are not in fact iPhone 18 Pro chassis parts. The original article follows. The color options Apple is reportedly planning for the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro and ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max have appeared online today in the form of images of chassis parts of unknown authenticity....