Safari Crashing on Your Mac? 6 Quick Fixes

You’re navigating through the web using Safari on your Mac when suddenly, the unexpected happens – it crashes. Suddenly, your seamless browsing experience turns into a frustrating ordeal. It’s a predicament that many of us have found ourselves in, but I’ve got your back.

In this guide, I’ll help you diagnose and fix the causes of Safari crashing on your Mac, getting you back on track. So, let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work on tackling those pesky Safari crashes.

6 Common Reasons for Safari Crashing on Mac

There are several reasons why Safari may crash on your Mac, but here are the most common culprits:

• 🔽 Too many open tabs: Each Safari tab consumes a certain level of system resources on your Mac. So, surfing or opening too many tabs at once may lead to high-level consumption of the system resources, causing it to overload and crash Safari.
• 🍪 Corrupt website data: Safari stores cache, cookies, and other website data to speed up your browsing experience. But over time, these web data files accumulate and often become corrupted, which can cause Safari to crash while running on your Mac.
• 🌐 Poorly designed website: A website with broken code sometimes causes unexpected errors and bugs. It often results in slower performance, website freezing, and Safari crashing on your Mac.
• 🧩 Faulty extensions: Some Safari extensions may be buggy, excessively using system resources, or still under the development stages waiting to be upgraded based on specific web data results. These issues can also affect Safari’s performance and lead it to crash on your Mac.
• 🔙 Safari version compatibility: The Safari version you use with your macOS may not be compatible or outdated. Some of its bugs and errors may be causing Safari to malfunction and crash your Mac.
• 💻 High resource consumption: Too many Safari extensions can strain your Mac’s memory and resources, potentially causing crashes. And enabling all extensions at once may lead to a sudden increase in demand, worsening the issue.

How to Fix Safari Crashes on Mac: 6 Easy Solutions

Now that you know the common reasons why Safari may crash on your Mac, let’s take a look at some effective ways to fix the problem.

1. Update Safari

Updating Safari often prevents crashes. Outdated versions of browsers can have bugs or compatibility issues with certain websites or plug-ins, which can cause crashes. These issues are generally addressed and fixed in newer versions of the browser.

Using the latest version may prevent Safari crashing on your Mac due to errors and bugs. To update Safari on your Mac, follow these steps:

1. Head to the System Settings via the Apple icon.

2. Select General and click Software Update.

3. If an update is available, click Update Now to download and install them.

4. This will update your macOS, and Safari will be updated, too.
5. Restart Safari, and the crashing issue should no longer exist.

2. Update All Apps In One Go With MacKeeper

Having outdated apps often leads to performance issues, including Safari crashing on your Mac. So, it’s better to keep all apps updated. You can do it in one go with MacKeeper, a third-party utility software suite for macOS designed to optimize and clean your Mac.

Using MacKeeper’s Update Tracker, you can identify outdated apps and select the ones you want to update. This step saves time and prevents future issues with outdated apps. Here’s how to use it:

1. Download and install MacKeeper on your Mac.
2. Open MacKeeper and click Update Tracker in the left sidebar.

3. Click Scan for Updates.

4. Once the scan is complete, you should see a list of apps that have available updates. Click individual apps or click the Check All box.

5. Tap the Update All button.

6. Wait for the updates to complete. You can click Rescan to update more apps.

3. Close Unnecessary Tabs

Each open tab in Safari uses up memory, and having too many tabs open can cause Safari to use up more memory than your Mac has available. When this happens, Safari may start to slow down or crash.

By closing unnecessary tabs, you can reduce the amount of memory being used by Safari and prevent crashes. Here’s how you can close all unused tabs at once in Safari:

1. Select your Safari window with multiple tabs open.

2. Right-click the tab you want to keep and select the option Close Other Tabs from the context menu.

This will close all tabs except the one you selected and also fix Safari crashing on your Mac.

4. Clear Cache and Cookies

Safari stores data from websites in its cache to speed up browsing. However, if the cache becomes too large, it can cause issues with Safari, including crashing. Clearing your Safari cache and cookies can sometimes resolve Safari crashing on your Mac.

To clear cache and cookies on Safari, follow these steps:

1. Open Safari and head to Safari in the menu bar.

2. Click Settings.

3. Select the Privacy tab.

4. Click Manage Website Data. 

5. Select Remove All to clear your cache and cookies.

6. Confirm by clicking on Remove Now.

7. Restart the Safari browser.

5. Disable Extensions

If any of your Safari extensions are incompatible, insecure, have instability issues, or it may use too much of your memory resources, it can cause Safari to crash. So, disabling a few of them when browsing would be a good option when they are not needed.

Here’s how to disable an extension in Safari:

1. Open Safari and go to the Safari menu in the top left corner of the screen. Click Settings in the drop-down menu.

2. Select the Extensions tab in the new window.

3. Uncheck the box next to each extension to disable them.

4. Close Safari and reopen it to see whether the problem is gone.

6. Check for Safari Compatibility Issues

The Safari version might be incompatible with your macOS. Or any other software running in the background may have certain compatibility issues. So, check Safari’s version and determine which program is causing it to crash. To find the Version of Safari on a Mac:

1. Click the Safari icon in the dock.

2. Choose About Safari under the Safari menu.

3. Look for the Version number displayed in the small window that appears.

4. Now, head to the other softwares installed on your Mac and check whether they are compatible with this Safari version.
5. Uninstall the incompatible software, and it should resolve the Safari crashing issue on your Mac.

7. Get Rid of Malware on Your Mac Using MacKeeper

Malware can include viruses, spyware, adware, and other harmful software that can affect the performance of your Mac and cause Safari to crash. By removing these malicious programs, you can improve the overall health of your computer and prevent issues with Safari.

If you are experiencing issues with Safari crashing on your Mac, you can use Mackeeper to try and fix the problem in a few clicks.

Follow these steps to run a virus scan on your Mac using MacKeeper:

1. Download and install MacKeeper on your Mac.
2. Launch Mackeeper and click the Antivirus tab in the left sidebar.

3. Click the Start Scan button to scan your system for issues.

4. Once the scan is complete, click the Fix items button to fix any problems found.
5. If no threats are found, click Restart to run the scan again or close the process.

6. Restart your Mac and try using Safari again. Hopefully, you won’t face Safari crashing on your Mac after this.

Final Thoughts

If you’re experiencing Safari crashes on your Mac, don’t worry – solutions are available to help fix it. To prevent future crashes, try these tips: 

• Besides your Safari browser, you should keep your macOS up to date.
• Organize your storage, clipboard, and browser caches.
• Clear your browser history and website data regularly to avoid any potentially corrupt data causing issues.

Frequently Asked Questions