Safari 18 Features: Highlights, New Reader Mode, and Video Viewer

In macOS Sequoia, Apple has some additional features in Safari 18 that are likely to be welcomed by Mac users. Here's a quick rundown of what's new.

safari highlights
Safari's headline feature in macOS 15 is something called Highlights, which aims to make it easier to discover information on the web.

Highlights can be accessed via a new site menu icon that appears in the address bar, from which you can quickly pull up relevant information about a site, such as directions, summaries, or quick links to learn more about people, music, movies, and TV shows.

As of writing this, Highlights does not appear to work outside of the United States, so it is likely to be region-specific at this early state. However, there are other changes to Safari that are live wherever you are located.

safari 18 reader
The Reader mode in Safari has received an overhaul, and now offers more customization options once you have enabled it on a site using the Reader button in the address bar.

If you click the button again, a dropdown menu lets you change the theme (white, off-white, gray, black) and choose your preferred font (Athelas, Charter, Georgia, Iowan, New York, Palatino, San Fransisco, Seravek, and Times New Roman).

In this menu, you can also find text size options by percentage (from 50% to 300%), as well as a "Find..." option to find a word or phrase on a page, and a button to Hide Reader mode.

Apple says that Reader can also provide a summary of an article, along with a table of contents in a sidebar, but we could not get this to work, likely because it is an aspect of Apple Intelligence, which will not be introduced until later in the year.

safari video viewer
Meanwhile, when Safari detects a video on the page, a new Video Viewer mode puts the media front and center, which allows you to adjust the window without obscuring the video. It also helpfully presents system playback controls within an overlay, including Picture in Picture.

In other Safari-related changes, ‌macOS Sequoia‌ beta adds support for opening links directly in web apps. Now, when you click a link, that link should open in the web app instead of your default web browser. You can also now personalize web apps on Mac with Safari Web Extensions and Content Blockers.

Lastly, Safari 18 beta for iOS, iPadOS, visionOS, ‌macOS Sequoia‌ and macOS Sonoma brings inline predictive text to the web, and you can now set which Safari profile should be used to open particular websites.

Related Roundup: macOS Sequoia
Tag: Safari
Related Forum: macOS Sequoia

Popular Stories

iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Coming Next Week With These New Features for Your iPhone

Friday February 14, 2025 6:18 am PST by
The first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner, and the update is expected to include many new features and changes. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman expects the iOS 18.4 beta to be released by next week. Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far. Apple Intelligence for Siri Siri is expected to get several enhancements powered by Apple Intelligence on iOS...
apple launch feb 2025 alt

What to Expect From the 'Apple Launch' Next Week

Thursday February 13, 2025 11:48 am PST by
Apple has yet to announce any new devices this year, but that could change starting next week. Apple CEO Tim Cook today said to "get ready" for a "launch" on Wednesday, February 19. "Get ready to meet the newest member of the family," said Cook, in a social media post. The post includes an #AppleLaunch hashtag, along with a short video featuring an animated Apple logo inside of a circle....
apple launch feb 2025

Tim Cook Teases an 'Apple Launch' Next Wednesday

Thursday February 13, 2025 8:07 am PST by
In a social media post today, Apple CEO Tim Cook teased an upcoming "launch" of some kind scheduled for Wednesday, February 19. "Get ready to meet the newest member of the family," he said, with an #AppleLaunch hashtag. The post includes a short video with an animated Apple logo inside a circle. Cook did not provide an exact time for the launch, or share any other specific details, so...
iPhone 17 Pro Render Front Page Tech

iPhone 17 Pro With All-New Camera Bar Design Allegedly Revealed

Thursday February 13, 2025 5:49 pm PST by
Apple's next-generation iPhone 17 Pro will feature three rear cameras arranged in a familiar triangular layout, but the cameras will be housed in an all-new rectangular camera bar with rounded corners, according to YouTube channel Front Page Tech. iPhone 17 Pro camera design render created by Asher for Front Page Tech In a video uploaded today, Front Page Tech host Jon Prosser said the camera ...
iPhone SE 4 Thumb 1

'New' iPhone SE Product Listing Appears on French Website

Wednesday February 12, 2025 6:49 am PST by
As the wait continues for Apple's long-rumored, fourth-generation iPhone SE, French electronics retailer Boulanger has prematurely published a product listing for a "new" model of the iPhone SE. The placeholder page says the device is "coming soon," but it offers no further information, and the price shown is obviously not real. The listing was spotted by a reader of the French technology...
M4 Mac mini Apple Video

Apple's Refurbished Mac Mini Pricing Has a Problem

Thursday February 13, 2025 6:20 am PST by
Apple this week began selling refurbished Mac mini models with the M4 chip for the first time, but this has led to a pricing conundrum. In the United States, Apple is offering a refurbished Mac mini with the base M4 chip, 256GB of storage, 16GB of RAM, and Gigabit Ethernet for $509, down from $599 new. This is the standard 15% discount that Apple offers on refurbished Macs. The issue is...
iPhone 16 Apple Store

iPhone 17 in New Sizes This Year: What to Know

Thursday February 13, 2025 2:45 am PST by
Last year, Apple tweaked iPhone 16 Pro screen sizes to make them bigger than 2023's iPhone 15 Pro models, and this year we are also expecting a change in the size of the displays in the iPhone 17 lineup. Here's what we know. Standard iPhone 17 Apple could introduce a new display size for the standard iPhone 17 model in 2025. The iPhone 17 could measure in at 6.3 inches, up from 6.1 inches,...
iphone air concept weis

iPhone 17 Air Could Look Like This in Real Life

Friday February 14, 2025 3:41 am PST by
There have been several alleged leaked details of the iPhone 17 Air, Apple's rumored new slim iPhone, but images have been limited to grainy shots taken in component factories. However, this hyper-realistic concept created by WEIS Studio gives us the best idea yet of what Apple's thin device might actually look like. The concept design is inspired by recent leaks indicating that the device...

Top Rated Comments

Moriakum Avatar
9 months ago

People still use Safari? I tried it when i first had my Mac, but I could nto get on with it, then I tried it again a few weeks ago, but had problems with some sites not working, so I have gone back to Firefox.
I do. I use the handoff between macOS and iOS a lot, which works perfectly, and I love the feature of automatically filling in 2fa codes for SMS and emails. And it's worked very well, I think Safari has improved a lot in the last few years.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dredlew Avatar
9 months ago

People still use Safari? I tried it when i first had my Mac, but I could nto get on with it, then I tried it again a few weeks ago, but had problems with some sites not working, so I have gone back to Firefox.
Safari is still the second-most used browser. Far behind Chrome but also far ahead of Firefox.



Of course, most of that is iOS/iPadOS. But even on the desktop, Safari is ahead of Firefox and Safari is not even available on Windows & Linux, unlike Firefox. So yeah... People still use FireFox? :D



Attachment Image

Attachment Image
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Manzanito Avatar
9 months ago

People still use Safari? I tried it when i first had my Mac, but I could nto get on with it, then I tried it again a few weeks ago, but had problems with some sites not working, so I have gone back to Firefox.
I do. I was quite happy with it, until I got this weird issue where composing emails in hotmail was so slow that the typing experience was unbearable. Other than that, works all right for me.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Moriakum Avatar
9 months ago

Safari is still the second-most used browser. Far behind Chrome but also far ahead of Firefox.



Of course, most of that is iOS/iPadOS. But even on the desktop, Safari is ahead of Firefox and Safari is not even available on Windows & Linux, unlike Firefox. So yeah... People still use FireFox? :D


People love Chrome... Never understood why.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gk_brown Avatar
9 months ago

No fixes to the messy interface? I have no idea where to find stuff anymore. Scattered around the share sheet, under the A button, the refresh button, the extensions menu, third party buttons, …

And there are iCloud tabs, tab groups, profiles, tab group favorites, ….
Don't forget the sidebar!
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Junior117 Avatar
9 months ago

People still use Safari? I tried it when i first had my Mac, but I could nto get on with it, then I tried it again a few weeks ago, but had problems with some sites not working, so I have gone back to Firefox.
I still use it.

It feels lighter to me and less of a RAM hog than Chrome (having 300+ tabs (yes, I know I'm insane) would still not be as intensive as 70 tabs in Chrome for me, but maybe I just have bad luck, I don't know).

I could never be able to fit Firefox. For whatever reason, the design just feels... off. (To be clear, I don't hate the design per se (it's a good design). I just can't seem to get myself to... like it for whatever reason.)
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)