Set and Preserve Zoom levels for Websites

Learn how to set the zoom level for individual websites and set the default zoom when vistiing a website with Safari on the Mac.

Did you know you could have Safari zoom in or out of web pages automatically? When you zoom in or out of a web page, Safari will remember that zoom level and apply it when you return. But also, you can set the default zoom level for any website you visit! See how to set and preserve zoom levels, as well as set the default zoom level when browsing the internet in this video for Safari on the Mac.

Video TranscriptIn this video, we’re going to look at how we can zoom in and out of websites in Safari, basically make the text larger and smaller by zooming in and out as well as how we can set it for each website so that Safari remembers what you set it at. Let’s see how we do this. Let’s go to my Mac.

So I am in Safari here. By default, when you visit a website, Safari will display it at a hundred percent. If we go up to View in the menu bar, you’re going to see I have Actual Size. It is grayed out. This is the actual size of the web.

Well, let’s say you wanted to make the text a little bit smaller, or maybe you want to make a little bit larger. You can’t read it. Well, then all you need to do is just go down to Zoom In and Out. If I zoom in, it’s going to make everything larger. I zoom out, it’s going to make everything smaller. So let’s go ahead and zoom out and you’re going to see it made the text smaller. It made everything smaller on the web. Let’s zoom out again. This time I’m going to use a keyboard shortcut, one of my favorite ways to do this. All you have to do is just hold down the command key and then either hit the dash or the equal key. Think of these as minus or plus, minus is going to make the text smaller, plus it’s going to make the text larger. So it’s command dash or command equal. I want to go back to actual size. We just go back up under View in the menu bar, and then we go to Actual Size. So that’s how we can basically zoom in and out of a website.

Now, when we do zoom in and out, what it will do is it’ll remember for that specific website. So then when you come back to that website, it’ll apply those zoom settings again. So let’s say I want to make this a little bit smaller. I’m going to zoom out twice here. Now, if I were to close this, so let’s go ahead and close this and now I’m going to open it back up. Let’s go to Dan’s Tutorials. It’s going to go back to that same zoom level. So it is remembering it for that specific website.

If I go to CNN, I’m going to open up a new tab. I go up under file and I go to new tab. I go to CNN. This page is going to be zoomed in at a hundred percent. When we go up under View, we can see that it is the actual size that is grayed out. So let’s zoom in to this one. I zoom in and then let’s zoom in again. So on CNN, I zoomed in and on my site, when we go back over to Dan’s Tutorials, I zoomed out. And again, it will remember that. So if I were to change the zoom level here again, Safari would remember that, and the next time I go to my site, it’ll apply that zoom level.

But let’s say I wanted to apply a zoom level to every website. The first time I visit it, I want to apply a zoom level to that. I want to make everything larger for every website. Well, we can do that too, but we have to do this through our Safari’s Preferences. To view Safari’s Preferences, we go up under Safari in the menu bar, and then we go over to Preferences. We have a new window that opens up. And from here, what we need to do is go to Websites. Under Websites, you’re going to see Page Zoom. Under Page Zoom, we can see what all of the website settings are. So CNN, we can see it is set for 125%. My site is set for 75%, and then down at the bottom, we can see that when I visit other websites, it’s going to be a hundred percent.

So I want to zoom in on all websites. I just go over to a hundred percent here. Let’s go and zoom into 125. Now, whenever I visit any website, what it will do is it will zoom into 125%. But when I go to my site, what it will do is it will zoom into 75%.

So let’s quit out of Safari here and see how this works. I quit now, I’m going to go back into Safari. It opens up my site. We can see it zoomed out. We go back over to CNN and it is zoomed in. Let’s open up a new site this time. We’re going to go to the Washington Post. What you’re going to see is it is zoomed in again. That is because in Safari’s Preferences here, we just go down to Preferences, and from here we go over to Websites and then we make sure that we’re looking at Page Zoom. Under Page Zoom we can see what all the zoom levels are. for my different websites. If I want to put Dan’s Tutorials back to a hundred percent, I just click on this and select a hundred percent. I want to change everything back to a hundred percent. I go down to the bottom here, select a hundred percent, and now we can see a switched Washington Post to a hundred percent. Let’s go and put CNN to 100% too. I just select this, and now everything’s at a hundred percent. And whenever I go to a new site, it’s also going to go to a hundred percent.

So that’s how you can set the zoom level of web pages in Safari and have Safari remember for each specific website, as well as the zoom level for when you visit a new website. To change the zoom level, my favorite way is by using the keyboard shortcuts, once you change it, Safari will remember that the next time you go to that website, it’ll apply that zoom level. To go back to actual size, you just go up under View and then select Actual Size. If you want to change the zoom level for all websites, then you go to Safari’s preferences and then under Websites and Page Zoom, you can select what the zoom level is, when you visit other websites. You can also change what the current zoom level is for your specific websites.

So that’s how you change the zoom level in Safari on the Mac.