Question

Safari 4 introduced a beefed-up Google search field on its toolbar that provides suggestions as you type, which is wonderful. What's not so wonderful is that it remembers everything you search without an option to disable it or clear it easily.

I can't figure out why Apple removed the "Clear Search" option from the drop down menu which displays past searches. I've managed to get the option back by hacking Safari's plist file but it's too much work.

Is there an easier way to do this, without going nuclear by using File->Reset Safari... or using the plist hack?

Answer 1

Like Jonik suggested in a comment: there's a "Clear Recent Searches" option in the drop down menu.

(At least in Safari 4.0.4)

Answer 2

I'm not a Safari user, but here's what I found:

The easiest way is to clear all your browsing history (click on the Clear History button in Full History search or choose History > Clear History). This will apparently also clear the search history.

Second method is:

1. Go to Settings/Safari
2. Change your search engine (switch from Google to Yahoo! or vise versa)
3. Launch Safari
4. Go to Settings/Safari
5. Clear History, Cookies, and Cache
6. Change your search engine back to what you had originally