how to change order of Safari url history display

Question

Level 1

4 points

how to change order of Safari url history display

Until recently, Safari on all my Macs has always displayed URL histories with the last ones at the top of the list. Today, for some reason on my MacBook Pro, Safari is now displaying the earliest visits at the top of the list. I have no idea how this happened. It certainly is not any choice I consciously made. I can find no commands in the Safari interface that will allow me to reverse this. Nor can I find any Safari help for how to change this back. For me, it's really helpful to have the latest sites visited appear first, rather than having to scroll to the bottom of a multi-page list every time I want to retrieve a recently-visited site.

I believe this functionality (i.e., change the order of display listing of previous sites visited) almost certainly should be available for Safari's History Menu, but I am trying this path rather than exercising AppleCare. I don't know the right terminology to plug into the Safari help search window, and I can't find an earlier discussion on this topic among the 2,184 pages at 15 topics per page (32,760 topics). So please forgive me if I missed an earlier discussion of this topic.

Doug

< Edited by Host >

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on May 5, 2010 10:13 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Carolyn Samit

Level 10

165,673 points

May 5, 2010 11:06 PM in response to Silver Frog

HI and Welcome to Apple Discussions...

Try clearing the Google search history.

Clearing Just Your Google History:

1. Go to the Safari Menu
2. Select Preferences
3. Select Autofill tab
4. Select the Edit button from the Other Forms Line
5. From the AutoFill list of sites select Google.com
6. Select Remove
7. Select Done

Relaunch Safari. If that doesn't help, From the Safari Menu Bar, click Safari / Empty Cache. When you are done with that...

From the Safari Menu Bar, click Safari / Reset Safari. Select the top 5 buttons and click Reset.

Since you are running Snow Leopard, try running Safari in 32-bit mode, not 64. Right or control click the Safari icon in the Applications folder, then click: Get Info In the Get Info window click the black disclosure triangle next to General so it faces down. Select 32 bit mode. Also, (in that same window) make sure Safari is NOT running in Rosetta.

Relaunch Safari. If the history list is still backwards, go here for trouble shooting 3rd party plugins or input managers which might be causing the problem. Safari: Add-ons may cause Safari to unexpectedly quit or have performance issues

Web pages now include a small icon or 'favicon' which is visible in the address bar and next to bookmarks. These icons take up disk space and slow Safari down. It is possible to erase the icons from your computer and start fresh. *To delete Safari's icon cache using the Finder, open your user folder, navigate to ~/Library/Safari/ and move this file "webpageIcons.db to the Trash.*

If you still have problems, go to the Safari Menu Bar, click Safari/Preferences. Make note of all the preferences under each tab. Quit Safari. Now go to ~/Library/Preferences and move this file com.apple.safari.plist to the Desktop. *Relaunch Safari.*

Carolyn 🙂

Reply

Answer 2

Silver Frog Author

Level 1

4 points

May 6, 2010 9:12 PM in response to Silver Frog

Carolyn,

Thank you for your rapid and extensive response to my quandary. I have tried them all, and with the exception of the last one, "remove com.apple.Safari.plist" they did not work. The last one DID work, however, the downside was, I lost all my earlier history of visited and added urls. Only my todays history was displayed with the most recent visits at the top of the window.

So I put the Safari.plist back into the Preferences file, and I at least have my earlier histories, although they are now back in the wrong order. What did I do (admittedly, inadvertently) to cause this ? How can I avoid having this happening again (assuming I can get it corrected ! )

I guess it's time for Apple Care ?

Thanks again for your effort.

-- Doug

<Edited by Host>

Reply

Answer 3

May 6, 2010 9:25 PM in response to Silver Frog

What did I do (admittedly, inadvertently) to cause this ? How can I avoid having this happening again (assuming I can get it corrected ! )

I don't think you did anything to cause this. Browsers have a way of acting up at times is all, preferen e files get corrupted. It happens.

Empty the cache more often... that will help. I see now reason to contact AppleCare for your browser history glitch but if you think it's necessary, then do that.

You're welcome...

🙂

Reply

Answer 4

May 6, 2010 9:45 PM in response to Silver Frog

I had an idea. From the Safari Menu Bar click History/Show All History

You'll see your history list under Collections. Now click Edit/Select All. Open a new Text Edit document. From that menu bar click Edit/Paste. That way you have a list of your history web addresses.

🙂

Reply

Answer 5

Silver Frog Author

Level 1

4 points

May 7, 2010 3:17 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

Carolyn,

OK. Thanks,

-- Doug
hoecker@pobox.com

Reply