How to remove Safari from Mac

March 20, 2025
Asya Karapetyan
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Asya Karapetyan
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A content marketer with 10+ years of experience specializing in macOS, focused on creating guides for Mac cleanup and optimization.
A content marketer with 10+ years of experience specializing in macOS, focused on creating guides for Mac cleanup and optimization.
Vladimir Nuzhdin
Approved by
Vladimir Nuzhdin
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The content has been reviewed and approved by our team member, an Apple Certified Support Professional, who provides technical support to Nektony’s users.
The content has been reviewed and approved by our team member, an Apple Certified Support Professional, who provides technical support to Nektony’s users.

Safari is a system application integrated into macOS, and Apple does not provide an option to uninstall it. If you really want to remove Safari, you must disable System Integrity Protection (SIP) and manually delete it.

In this article, we’ll guide you through the steps to uninstall Safari on older versions of macOS. In addition, we’ll provide suggestions on how you can improve the speed of your browser and get the most out of the browser without needing to uninstall it.

Contents:

  1. Can you uninstall Safari from Mac?
  2. How to remove Safari from old versions of macOS
  3. How to uninstall Safari extensions
  4. How to reset Safari
  5. FAQs

Can you uninstall Safari?

Generally, you don’t need to uninstall Safari from your Mac. If you don’t use it, it doesn’t accumulate caches or other service files, so it doesn’t take up much space on your drive.

Even if you try to remove Safari to Trash, you will receive this message from macOS: “Safari app can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by macOS.”

Message that Safari cannot be removed

Why Safari can’t be deleted?

The fact is, according to Apple System Integrity Protection (SIP), you are unable to modify pre-installed applications and some system folders on Macs. This inability to remove such items in the standard way is envisaged by Apple to be a safeguard against inexperienced users accidentally damaging the viability of the system.

This is very important because, even if the browser can always be restored by downloading from the App Store, with other applications it’s a little more complicated. However, there is a way to delete Safari on Mac using the Terminal command line. For this, you need to disable the System Integrity Protection.

Note: On some systems, Safari can be restored after enabling SIP.

How to remove Safari from old versions of macOS

Before providing the steps to uninstall Safari on Mac, once again we would like to remind you that, if you’re not a computer geek and are not exactly sure what to do, we strongly advise you not to delete it. By uninstalling the browser, you will save not more than 150 megabytes, which hardly justifies deleting it.

However, if you are certain you want to uninstall Safari from your Mac, read on. Please note that all actions for removing embedded programs are completely at your own risk.

Before removing Safari, you should disable SIP – System Integrity Protection.

Note: This guide doesn’t work for macOS Monterey and later versions. Since macOS the version 12, Apple doesn’t allow to uninstall Safari even when SIP is disabled. On the newest versions of macOS, the default Apple applications, including Safari, are located on a protected area of the disk even when you turn off SIP.

Step 1. Disable SIP

  1. Restart your Mac holding the Command+R keyboard shortcut while the reboot is in progress.
  2. Your Mac will show you are in Recovery mode.
  3. Go to the Menu bar.
  4. Click Utilities and select Terminal.
    5. Utilities menu in Recovery mode
  5. Paste in the Terminal window this command and press Return on your keyboard:
    csrutil disable

    6. terminal-command to disable sip

  6. This will disable your SIP.
  7. Restart your Mac.
  8. Log in to your system using your admin account.
  9. Now you have System Integrity Protection disabled.

For the next steps you need to have administrator rights.

Steps 2. Remove Safari from Mac

  1. Launch the Terminal program from Launchpad again.
  2. Enter the following command:
    sudo mount -uw /System/Applications
  3. Press the Return key.
  4. Enter your admin password if asked.

    5. terminal with sudo mount command

  5. Now you have mounted the /System/Applications folder to have Read & Write permission.
  6. Type this command and press Return.
    cd /Applications/
  7. The applications’ directory will be shown.

    8. terminal with command to show app directory

  8. Enter one of the following commands to delete Safari:
    • On macOS 10.14: sudo rm -rf Safari.app/
    • On macOS 10.15: sudo rm -rf ~/mount/Applications/Safari.app
  9. Press Return.

Please be careful: when you remove items via Terminal, the system does not ask for confirmation.

Note: On macOS Ventura, Safari is located in the following directory: /System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/App/System/Applications/Safari.app. Even if you disable SIP, it is located on a protected area of the disk and you can’t delete it.

After you have removed Safari, don’t forget to enable back the SIP. For this, again restart your Mac in Recovery mode (press Command+R while rebooting), and enter the csrutil enable command into Terminal.

Read also: “How to uninstall default Apple apps.“

How to uninstall Safari extensions

In case you experience a very slow browser, don’t rush to get rid of Safari. Usually, extensions slow down your browser. Try uninstalling unneeded Safari extensions to improve its performance.

Steps to uninstall Safari extensions on Mac:

  1. Open the Safari browser.
  2. Go to the Menu bar and click Safari.
  3. Select Settings.

    4. safari menu with Settings command selected

  4. Switch to the Extensions tab. Here you can take a look at all your extensions.
  5. Select unneeded extensions and click the Uninstall button.

    6. Safari settings showing the Extensions tab

How to reset Safari

Resetting Safari may help you improve its performance and fix glitches. You can easily do it using App Cleaner & Uninstaller. Here’s how:

  1. Launch App Cleaner & Uninstaller.
  2. Go to the app’s settings.
  3. Enable the option Display System Applications.

    4. app cleaner preferences window with display system apps option highlighted

  4. Press Command+R to rescan your apps.
  5. Switch on the Expert mode.
  6. Find Safari in the list of apps.
  7. Right-click on it.
  8. Choose Reset Application.
  9. Click the Remove button.
  10. Confirm the removal.
    11. Reset Safari

FAQs

How to remove Safari from Mac Dock?

To disable Safari from showing always in the Dock panel, do the following:

  1. Right-click Safari in the Dock panel.
  2. Choose Options.
  3. Uncheck the option Keep in Dock.
    4. Disabling Safari from Dock

How to delete Safari history?

To clear Safari history on your Mac, follow these steps:

  1. Launch Safari.
  2. In the top menu bar, click History.
  3. Select Clear History… from the dropdown menu.
  4. Choose the time range of the history you want to delete in the window that appears.
  5. Click Clear History.
  6. This will remove your browsing history, cookies, cache, and website data for that period.
    7. Clear Safari history

How to disable Safari?

If you don’t want Safari to be your default browser, you can switch to another browser, such as Chrome or Firefox. Here’s how:

  1. Go to System Settings.
  2. Click on Desktop & Dock.
  3. Near Default web browser, choose your preferred browser.

How can I make Safari faster?

To make Safari faster on your Mac, follow these tips:

  • Clear the browser cache and history.
  • Disable unused extensions.
  • Disable auto-playing videos.
  • Close unnecessary tabs.
  • Regularly update Safari and macOS.

These steps should bring an improvement in Safari’s speed and overall performance.

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