Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at using Safari Profiles.
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Safari Profiles are a new feature in macOS Sonoma that allow you to separate browsing,
say, between personal things and work things, or if you do multiple things
for work separate those out into different profiles as well. To understand Profiles,
first make sure you understand how private browsing windows work.
So here in Safari I can have a regular Safari window here and I can be logged onto different
websites with my accounts. Then I can go and create a new private window. That private
window will be separate from my regular window. So while I'm logged into, say,
a social media site here, in my private window I wouldn't be logged in. I can,
in fact, logged in with a different account and then be logged in with
one account on the private window and one account in my regular Safari window.
Now with private browsing as soon as you close the window there everything that you were logged into
in that private browsing window you're now logged out of. That private browsing window
doesn't exist anymore. When you create a new one you're not logged into anything. So, now
you would have to relog into sites, perhaps even using different accounts. You can have multiple
private windows open but when you close any of those they are gone forever. The website data,
also known as cookies, and the history are completely gone and if you were logged into
something you now have to log into it again in a new private browsing window. Anything you do
in a private window doesn't affect what you're doing in regular Safari windows.
Now Profiles take this to another level. With private browsing windows as soon as you close
it like that it's gone. But with Profiles you can actually bring it back. They are very similar to
private browsing windows but they are persistent, still separate from your regular browsing window
but persistent if you were to close it and reopen it. Here's an illustration of how it works. In a
regular Safari window you might be logged into say three different sites. Maybe a social media site,
maybe a banking site, maybe a shopping site. You may have a long history of what pages that
you visit. If you were to close that window, it's gone. But if you were to Open it again
everything returns. You're still logged into the those various sites. You still have the same
history. That doesn't go away just because you closed the window or even quit Safari.
As a matter of fact the amount of time you're logged in is determined by the website itself.
For instance a website, like a social media site,
might keep you logged in for about two weeks before it asks you for your password again. A
shopping site maybe two months. But a banking site may have a really short time limit,
like five or fifteen minutes before it automatically logs you out. But otherwise
you'll stay logged in even if you close the window or quit Safari and launch it again.
Now if you were to open a private window while you're logged into these sites,
in the private window you're not logged into any of those sites at all. Now you can go and log
in with different accounts on the same sites. So on my regular Safari window I can be logged into
Site A with one ID and on the private window I'm logged into Site A with a different ID.
Notice also that Private windows don't keep a history. So the history is not really there.
You can actually go back. You can use the back button so there is some history there. But that
is completely gone once you close the window. So if I were to close this browsing window and
open it again you could see that I'm not logged into those sites anymore. The entire history and
all the details of that previous window are gone when you close it. So your main window,
that you're using normally, and you can actually have multiple windows open,
that's your personal profile. That's basically how you would think of just regularly using Safari.
It is just called your Personal Profile now because everything is in the Profile.
You can use your Personal Profile as you used before. Here I've logged into a bunch of sites
and I've got some sort of history going on. Now if I were to open a new window with a new Profile,
I'll call this Profile X, at the beginning I'm not logged into anything. But I can login to different
sites or maybe not log into sites as a want. This could be different than my Personal Profile. Very
similar to a regular browsing window and using a private window except that now I actually have got
a history. A separate history for this profile than I do for the Personal Profile.
If I were to close the window with this profile it's gone. But if I were to open it again I'm
still logged into those sites. I still have that same history. It doesn't go away like it
does with a private window. So it is separate, like a private window, but it is not temporary
unlike a private window. In fact I can open up another profile. Here I've got Profile Y and I
start off not logged into anything there. I can log into sites with even a different account and
have a different history there as well. I could close one profile, close the other profile,
open one up, open the other one up. It remembers. It's like having three separate browsers. But
they are all in Safari, just different windows. So let's look at how to use it.
To create a Profile you need to go to Safari Settings. Then go to Profiles. Then click Start
using Profiles. Now your first profiles are Personal Profile. So you're creating
your second one here. I'll call this one Work. I'll give it another icon. Maybe a
different color. I can also choose what I want to use for favorites. This would appear at the
Favorites Bar on the top if I have it turned on. So I can create a new bookmarks folder
to use as favorites just for this profile or I can use an existing folder. So I can
have the same bookmarks as my Favorites or multiple Profiles, that's no problem. Or I
can have a separate one for each if I go to different websites for work as I do for my
Personal Profile. It may be handy to actually have Favorites pointing to a different folder.
Now I click Create Profile. You can see I have two profiles here. I've got Personal,
the default. I can rename that if I want and change the symbol and color, and the work one.
I can change the things that I setup before. I can even change what happens when I open up this
work profile with what happens with a new window and what happens with a new Tab in that window.
I can even change which extensions are active for each profile. So if there is a profile I
only use for work and not other things, I can have it On in one profile and Off in another.
You can see I can add new Profiles here with the Play Button and create as many as I need.
So now I've got two different windows open and you could see them identified here at the top. This
is the personal profile window. This is the work profile window. If I were to create new one like,
all I need to do id go to File. You can see I create a new personal window, the initial profile
that is there at the top,. but I can also create other windows for other profiles. So a new work
window.and I've got the work profile. Now these world be separate. Anything I would log into in my
Personal Profile I would not be logged into on my work profile. So I can log into separate accounts
or maybe on my personal profile I'm not logged in, say, to Goggle at all but on my work profile I am.
You could click this button here at the top of any window and switch profiles if
you want. Note that you can have multiple windows open with the same profile. So I
create a new work window and you could see I've got two work windows. So these would
be like two browser windows in Safari. They both would be logged into the same websites,
have the same website data, cookies, and the same history. But these two windows
would be separate than from this one which is using the personal profile.
So as I mentioned before you could use this to log into different accounts in different
websites depending upon which profile you are using. Another way to use it would be to not be
logged into things. You could also use it like this where with your personal profile you're
logged into one website, say a social media website, but really nothing else. Nothing for
work. Then you've got a second profile and that is for work. So you're not logged into
your social media website but you are logged into a specific work web site. Then you have
a third one where you are not logged into either your social media website or your work website
but maybe another website that is for something else. So as you switch between these profiles
you have greater privacy in browsing each of these websites in three different situations.
There are a lot of different uses for this but not everybody needs to use Profiles. I think
most Mac users can just use Safari as before. Just without Profiles. Just browsing the web as
normal. But if you do find that you switch modes between a home or personal mode and a work mode,
or maybe you have several different jobs that you use your computer for
then you can use Profiles to keep those separate as you browse the web with Safari.
So I hope you found this useful if you've been wondering what Safari
Profiles are and whether or not they can be useful for you. Thanks for watching.