You’ve probably spent the last ten minutes digging through your iOS Settings app trying to find a single toggle to set Safari homepage iPhone. It’s frustrating. You want that one specific site—maybe it’s Google, maybe it’s a news site you check every morning—to pop up the second you tap that blue compass icon. But here’s the thing: Apple doesn’t actually have a "homepage" button in the way Windows 95 did.
Seriously.
If you’re looking for a box labeled "Homepage URL" in the Safari settings, you’re going to be looking forever because it isn't there. Apple treats the "Start Page" as your home, and while that’s great for some people, it’s annoying for anyone who just wants their browser to open to a specific URL every single time.
Basically, you have to outsmart the software.
The Start Page is the New Homepage
Apple replaced the traditional homepage concept with something they call the Start Page. It’s that grid of icons you see when you open a new tab. It’s got your Favorites, your "Frequently Visited" sites (which can be embarrassing if you don't clear your history), and your Siri Suggestions.
To get even close to a custom experience, you have to customize this page. Open Safari. Tap the "Tabs" icon—the two overlapping squares in the bottom right corner. Hit the "+" plus sign to open a new tab. Now, scroll all the way to the bottom of that page and hit "Edit."
This is where the magic happens.
You can toggle off all the junk you don't want. Don't want "Shared with You" cluttering your view? Kill it. Hate the "Privacy Report" taking up space? Toggle it off. You can even set a background image here. If you want a specific website to be your "homepage," the closest official way is to add it to your Favorites and make sure Favorites is the only thing enabled on this Start Page.
It’s not perfect. It’s a workaround. But it’s the way the ecosystem is built now.
How to Set Safari Homepage iPhone Using a Home Screen Shortcut
If you absolutely must have a "one-tap" experience where a specific website opens immediately, you shouldn't be opening Safari first. You should be using a Home Screen bookmark. Honestly, this is the most effective way to set Safari homepage iPhone without actually having a homepage setting.
Go to the website you want. Let’s say it’s $nytimes.com$ or your favorite recipe blog. Tap the Share button at the bottom (the little square with an arrow pointing up). Scroll down through the list of options until you see "Add to Home Screen."
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Tap that.
Now, give it a name. You can call it "Home" or "Google" or whatever. When you hit "Add," a new icon appears on your iPhone’s home screen. It looks just like an app. Now, instead of tapping the Safari icon, you tap this icon. It launches Safari and goes directly to that URL.
Boom. Functional homepage.
This method is actually superior for most users because it bypasses the "Start Page" entirely. You aren't stuck looking at your most recent tabs; you're going exactly where you intended to go. Many people don't realize that Safari on iOS is designed to remember where you left off. If you had twenty tabs open last night, Safari is going to show you those twenty tabs today. A Home Screen shortcut cuts through that noise.
The Problem with Recent Tabs
One thing that trips everyone up is Safari’s persistence. Unlike a desktop browser that might start fresh every time you launch it, iOS is aggressive about "state preservation."
If you want your "homepage" to show up every time you open the app, you’d have to manually close all your tabs every time you’re done browsing. That’s a nightmare. Nobody has time for that. This is why the Home Screen shortcut mentioned above is the only real way to guarantee you land on a specific page every single time you want to browse the web.
Using Tab Groups for a "Themed" Homepage
If you’re a power user, you probably know about Tab Groups. Introduced in iOS 15, these allow you to categorize your browsing. But they can also act as a sort of "homepage" system.
Imagine you have a "Morning" tab group.
In that group, you keep your email, your weather, and a news site. Instead of trying to set Safari homepage iPhone to one site, you just keep this group open. When you wake up, you switch to that Tab Group. It’s all right there.
To set this up, tap the Tabs icon, then tap the middle bar at the bottom where it says "Start Page" or "X Tabs." Tap "New Empty Tab Group" and name it. Now, any site you open in this group stays there. It’s a persistent workspace. It’s not a homepage in the 2005 sense, but in 2026, it’s how we manage the chaos of the mobile web.
Clearing the Clutter: Why Your "Homepage" Feels Messy
Sometimes the reason people want a homepage is simply because the Start Page is too busy. It’s overwhelming. Apple tries to be helpful by showing you "Siri Suggestions" which are often just websites you visited once and never want to see again.
- Open Safari to a new tab.
- Scroll to the bottom and hit Edit.
- Turn off Frequently Visited. This is the biggest culprit of a messy UI.
- Turn off Siri Suggestions. It’s rarely right anyway.
- Turn off Reading List and Cloud Tabs if you don't use them.
What you’re left with is a clean, minimalist grid. If you only have one Favorite icon in that grid, you’ve essentially created a manual homepage.
The "Open New Tabs In" Trick
There is one semi-hidden setting in the main Settings app that you should check.
Go to Settings > Safari.
Look for the section labeled "Tabs." There’s an option for "Open Links." But more importantly, if you look at "Close Tabs," you can set them to close automatically after one day, one week, or one month.
Why does this matter for your homepage?
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Because if you set your tabs to close after a day, Safari essentially resets itself every morning. When you open the app, it’s more likely to land on your Start Page (your "homepage") rather than a random tab you opened three days ago to look up how long to boil an egg.
It forces the browser to stay tidy.
Can You Change the Default Search Engine?
Often, when people ask how to set Safari homepage iPhone, what they actually want is to change what happens when they type in the address bar. They want Google. Or they want DuckDuckGo because they're tired of being tracked.
This is a separate setting.
Head back to Settings > Safari > Search Engine. You’ve got options: Google, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Ecosia. Changing this won't change your homepage, but it changes the "home" of your searches. If you’re a privacy nut, switching to DuckDuckGo here is a much bigger win than simply setting a homepage.
Addressing the Third-Party Browser Myth
You might be thinking, "Maybe I should just download Chrome or Firefox."
You can. And you can set them as your default browser.
But truth be told, even Chrome on iPhone doesn't have a traditional "homepage" button in the way the desktop version does. Because of Apple’s WebKit requirements, every browser on iPhone is basically Safari with a different skin and some synced bookmarks. They all follow the same mobile UX patterns. You'll run into the same "Start Page" philosophy no matter which app you use.
The limitation isn't the app; it's the mobile OS mindset.
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Actionable Steps to Take Right Now
Stop looking for a single "Set Homepage" button. It’s not coming back. Instead, do this to get the same result:
- Clean your Start Page: Open a new tab, hit Edit, and toggle off everything except "Favorites."
- Curate your Favorites: Long-press any icon on your Start Page to delete it. Add only the one site you want to treat as your homepage.
- Create a Home Screen Icon: Navigate to your favorite site, hit the Share icon, and select "Add to Home Screen." Move this icon to your Dock at the bottom of your iPhone.
- Automate Tab Closing: Go to Settings > Safari > Close Tabs and set it to "After One Day." This keeps your browser fresh.
By following these steps, you’ve basically forced iOS to give you a homepage. It requires a bit of manual setup, but once it’s done, the "where do I start?" feeling of opening a messy browser disappears. You get straight to the content you care about without the digital friction.