Best Safari Extensions in 2026: Mac and iPhone Guide

Safari extensions don’t live in a separate web store the way Chrome’s do. They’re Mac App Store or iOS App Store downloads that plug straight into the browser you already use. That single design choice explains almost everything people find confusing about them: why you can’t just paste in a .crx file, why permissions feel stricter, and why the install flow on iPhone looks nothing like it does on a Mac.

However you’ve searched — safari ext, addon for safari, browser extension safari, browser extensions for safari, or just good safari extensions. You’re after the same thing: tools that make Safari do more without slowing it down or handing over data it doesn’t need. This guide covers the best categories to add, exact install and permission steps for Mac and iPhone, how Safari extensions compare to Chrome’s, and where they run out — specifically, protecting the tabs you already have open, a job most extensions were never built to do.

What Are the Best Safari Extensions in 2026?

The best Safari extensions are the ones matched to what actually slows you down, not whatever tops a random ranking. A password manager for logins, a content blocker for privacy and page speed, a shopping tool for checkout, and something that protects the tabs you already have open cover most of what people install extensions for in the first place.

Picking the best Safari addons starts with categories rather than brand names, because the right pick depends on what you already use elsewhere. If you use a password manager on Windows or Android too, the Safari version of that same tool beats a Safari-only alternative, since your logins stay in one place. The same logic applies to note-taking and read-later tools: match the extension to the ecosystem you’re already in rather than chasing a “best of” list.

One category gets skipped more often than it should: tabs and sessions. Safari’s own tools handle bookmarks and reading lists well, but neither one automatically protects the forty tabs open across three windows when your Mac restarts for an update. That’s a different job from ad blocking or password filling, and it’s worth treating as its own category rather than an afterthought.

Here’s a quick answer by category before the install steps:

Everything in that table installs the same basic way, which is the part worth getting right first.

How Do You Install Extensions in Safari on a Mac?

You install Safari extensions from the Mac App Store, not a separate extensions site — open Safari, choose Safari Extensions from the Safari menu, and that takes you straight into the App Store’s extensions section. Browse or search for what you need, then click Get or Install like you would for any Mac app. (For everything else Safari does beyond extensions, see our Safari browser guide.)

Installing isn’t the same as turning something on. Safari extensions arrive disabled by default, which is easy to forget the first time and then wonder why nothing changed after the install finished.

Enable it right after installing. The App Store install and the “turn it on” step are two separate actions in Safari. Get in the habit of opening Extensions in Safari Settings right after an install so you’re not troubleshooting an extension that was never switched on in the first place.

Once it’s on, it stays on across restarts and macOS updates unless you turn it off yourself — one of the more reliable things about safari browser extensions compared with some Windows software that resets itself after every update.

How Do You Manage, Disable, or Remove a Safari Extension on Mac?

Managing an installed extension happens in the same place you turned it on: Safari Settings, then Extensions. Unchecking the box next to its name disables it immediately, and nothing about your saved passwords, bookmarks, or open tabs changes when you do that.

Removing one completely is a different action from disabling it. Because Safari extensions are bundled inside a Mac App Store app rather than existing as standalone files, deleting that parent app is what removes the extension from Safari — not just toggling it off. If you’re not sure which app an extension belongs to, its name on the Extensions page usually matches or closely resembles the app you installed.

Extensions ride along with an app. A Safari extension isn’t a separate download the way a Chrome extension is. It’s a feature of a Mac app, so uninstalling that app is what fully removes the extension — disabling it in Settings only pauses it.

It’s worth doing a pass through your Extensions list every so often, especially after installing a handful of apps for a one-off task. An extension you enabled months ago for a single project and forgot about is still requesting whatever website access you granted it, doing nothing useful while quietly sitting active. Disabling anything you don’t recognize is a safe default; you can always turn it back on if it turns out you needed it.

How Do You Control Which Websites an Extension Can Access?

Every Safari extension’s website access is something you set individually, not something granted once and forgotten. From the Extensions page in Safari Settings, click Edit Websites next to any extension to see a list of sites with three choices for each: Allow, Deny, or Ask.

Ask is the most cautious default, prompting you every time that extension wants to run on a new site. Allow skips the prompt for sites you’ve approved, and Deny blocks it outright on that domain regardless of what the extension is trying to do. There’s also a separate Allow in Private Browsing toggle per extension, off by default, since most extensions have no real reason to see what you’re doing in a private window.

Start stricter than feels necessary. Set new extensions to Ask for the first week you use them, then switch trusted ones to Allow once you’ve seen what they request. It’s a lot easier to loosen a permission later than to notice, months in, that something has had silent access to every site you visit.

This per-site model is one of the more genuinely useful parts of how Safari handles extensions, and it’s worth using even for extensions you trust completely. A password manager, for instance, doesn’t need Allow on a site you never log into — Ask costs you one extra tap and limits exactly how much of your browsing an extension can quietly observe.

How Do You Install Extensions in Safari on iPhone?

Safari extensions for iPhone come from the App Store, the same place as any other app, and you can get there directly or from inside Safari itself. Tap the icon at the left of Safari’s search field and choose Browse Extensions to jump straight into the App Store’s extensions section without leaving the browser.

Safari iPhone extensions install like any other app download, but (same as on Mac) installing isn’t the same as switching one on. You still need to flip it on in Settings before it does anything inside Safari.

If you’ve used safari extensions iPhone support before on an older device, the flow hasn’t changed much: App Store install, then an explicit toggle in Settings. What has changed is how much cross-device convenience you get for free. Extensions built for safari extensions for iPhone that also support Mac and iPad sync automatically once you’re signed into the same Apple Account, so a password manager or content blocker you set up once shows up everywhere without a second install. For the rest of what’s different about using Safari on a phone versus a Mac, see our Safari on iPhone guide.

How Do You Turn Safari Extensions On or Off for a Specific Website on iPhone?

Per-site control on iPhone lives inside Safari itself, not in the Settings app. Tap the icon at the left of the search field, choose Manage Extensions, and switch each installed extension on or off just for the site you’re currently viewing.

This matters more than it sounds like it should. An extension that’s helpful on a shopping site (say, something checking for coupon codes) has no reason to be active on your banking app’s website, and per-site toggles let you draw that line without disabling the extension everywhere else.

Everything here covers what an extension can see and do on a page. It says nothing about what happens to your tabs if Safari itself restarts, crashes, or your Mac needs to reboot for an update. That’s a separate problem, and on Mac it’s one worth solving with a different kind of extension: BelayTab saves every open window as a named session automatically, so a restart costs you nothing even if you never think to save manually.

Can You Use Chrome or Firefox Extensions in Safari?

Not directly — Safari uses its own extension format, so a Chrome or Firefox extension won’t just install in Safari the way it would in another Chromium browser. Apple’s Safari Web Extension model requires a developer to rebuild the extension using Apple’s documented approach, then publish the result through the App Store before anyone can install it.

This is genuinely different from how Chromium-based browsers handle the same problem. Brave, for one, states plainly that any extension found in the Chrome Web Store will also work in Brave, since Brave shares Chrome’s underlying engine. Opera works similarly: installing a Chrome Web Store extension there is just a matter of clicking Add to Opera, no separate helper extension required, because Opera runs on Chromium too.

Safari isn’t Chromium-based, so none of that carries over. If an extension you rely on in Chrome or Edge doesn’t have a Safari version in the App Store, the honest answer is that it may never get one — porting it takes real developer effort, not a settings toggle you can flip yourself.

Worth checking the equivalent guide for whichever browser you’re coming from if you split time across two of them — our Firefox extensions guide covers the same install-and-permissions questions for Mozilla’s browser, and it’s a genuinely different flow from Safari’s App Store model.

Are Safari Extensions Safe to Install?

Generally, yes — every Safari extension goes through Apple’s App Store review before it’s listed, which filters out a lot of the outright malicious software that can show up in less-curated extension stores. That review is a floor, not a guarantee, so it’s still worth a quick check before granting broad access.

None of this replaces the per-site controls covered earlier. An extension can pass App Store review and still request more website access than it needs for what it does, and Allow, Deny, and Ask exist precisely so you don’t have to take that request at face value.

Safe doesn’t just mean “won’t steal data,” either. An extension with broad website access can also slow down every page you load or break a site’s layout in small, annoying ways. Treating the App Store review as a starting point rather than the end of the conversation is the safer habit either way.

How Is Safari Different From Chrome for Extensions?

Safari and Chrome differ at almost every step of how extensions get installed, reviewed, and controlled. However you got here (comparing the two directly, or just searching browser extensions safari out of curiosity) the short version is that Safari’s App Store model is stricter and more centralized than Chrome’s.

The clearest differences show up in where extensions come from and how site access is worded:

That last row matters more than it looks. Chrome extensions built for the old Manifest V2 format stopped working entirely once Chrome finished its migration, while Safari’s extension model has followed its own separate path the whole time, so an old Safari extension doesn’t face the same cliff. If you switch between the two browsers regularly, our Safari vs Chrome comparison goes deeper into the rest of the differences beyond extensions, and the Edge extensions guide is worth a look too since Edge sits closer to Chrome’s model than Safari’s.

What Should You Do When a Safari Extension Can’t Save Your Tabs?

Most Safari extensions are built to change how a single page behaves (block an ad, fill a password, apply a coupon) not to protect the tabs you already have open across every window. Safari’s own rules make that gap wider than it is in other browsers: extensions can’t read your recently closed windows, and Safari doesn’t support tab groups the way Chromium browsers do, so a lot of the tab-management extensions built for Chrome simply have no Safari equivalent.

That’s the specific problem BelayTab is built for. It saves an entire window, or just the tabs you select, as a named session with one click or with Cmd + Shift + S, and it runs automatic snapshots of every open window every five minutes and again whenever a window closes. Restoring never overwrites anything — every restore adds a new version, and the last 20 versions of each session stick around, alongside a 30-day trash for anything you delete on purpose.

Everything lives on one Recovery screen: snapshots, deleted sessions, and export files in one place, alongside the browser’s own recently closed windows where the browser supports reading them. It’s free, with no account required and no limit on sessions or tabs, and nothing leaves your computer unless you turn on the optional paid Sync — BelayTab doesn’t read page content and doesn’t request host permissions to work.

Be clear-eyed about the limits, too: BelayTab can’t recover tabs that were open before it was installed, and it can’t fix a browser crash or freeze by itself. It just makes sure the tabs survive whatever happens next. For Safari specifically, tab groups aren’t supported, matching Safari’s own limits rather than a gap in BelayTab. If you’re on iPhone, restoring closed tabs works differently since BelayTab isn’t available on iOS — our Safari iPhone tab guide covers the built-in options there instead.