Safari sidebar: Show only Favorites, remove Recents

To clean up the Safari sidebar and remove the Recents section:

1. Open Safari > click the sidebar icon (or View > Show Sidebar)

2. At the top of the sidebar, you'll see tabs for Bookmarks and Reading List

3. Click on Bookmarks (the book icon)

4. You should see your Favourites folder listed here — you can navigate directly to it

5. To hide Recents from the sidebar: right-click (or Control-click) anywhere in the sidebar and look for options to hide or customize what's shown

To stop the sidebar from defaulting to Reader view on open:

- This is controlled per-site: Safari menu > Settings for This Website > uncheck "Use Reader Automatically" for any sites where it's auto-enabling

- To turn it off globally: Safari > Settings (Cmd+,) > Websites tab > Reader > set "When visiting other websites" to Off

Regarding Recents specifically:

- In macOS Sequoia/macOS 26, go to Safari > Settings > General

- Look for "Show Favorites" option and ensure it's set to show your Favourites folder specifically

- The Recents/Siri Suggestions that appear at the top of new tab pages and sidebar can be turned off in Safari Settings > Search > uncheck "Include Safari Suggestions" and "Preload Top Hit"

Unfortunately, there's currently no direct toggle to completely remove the Recents section from the sidebar bookmark view — this is a feature request worth submitting to Apple at feedbackassistant.apple.com so they can add more sidebar customization options.