How To Change Default Search Engine in Safari (iOS and macOS)

If you use the Safari browser on your iOS devices (iPhone, iPad or iPod touch) and on your Mac; you can easily change your default search engine; so that when you search something, your results will come from the search engine you select.

In this post, you will learn how to set a search engine as your default search engine in Safari with a few quick steps.

Safari has four search engines as built-in options. You can make any of them as your default search engine.

Safari (Mac or iOS) comes with the following search engines:

• Google, the largest search engine
• Bing, owned by Microsoft and the second largest search engine
• Yahoo, the third largest search engine 
• DuckDuckGo, a search engine that does not track searchers 

You can choose a default search engine for searching the web. For example, you may want to use DuckDuckGo if you want to protect your privacy.

macOS (OS X) – Desktop Safari

There are two ways you can do this:

Method 1

1. Launch Safari and open a new blank window or tab.
2. Click on the magnifying glass (in the address bar)
3. Then select your desired search engine.

Method 2

1. Launch Safari
2. Select Safari > Preferences
3. Click the Search tab
4. Next to “Search Engine” select your desired search engine from the pulldown menu.
5. If you use this method, you can change more settings. You can enable or disable if you want your default search engine to show you suggestions.
6. Now you can close the Preferences window

iOS Safari (iPhone, iPad or iPod touch) – Mobile Safari

You can choose your search engine in iOS also. Here is how:

1. On your iPad or iPhone, tap Settings
2. Tap Safari
3. Tap Search Engine 
4. Select the search engine you want
5. Then you may exit by pressing the Home button

See also:

• How to close all tabs
• How To Recover Lost Safari Bookmarks – iCloud