Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

LD Curb

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 19, 2015
391
239
USA
Does anyone know if there is a reasonably easy way to remove all traces of Safari on my Mac?

The reason I want it gone is it keeps popping up in my iPad dock. And this drives me crazy because, for example, I am used to mail being my last item in the dock. So I go to click it and boom ... the Safari icon pops in. It's hard to explain and I can do a little video if that would help.

I have quit Safari and moved it out of my Mac's dock but it keeps popping up in my iPad dock anyway. I tried to move it out of the dock and it will not budge.

I have the dock options turned off in my Settings and I restarted my iPad. That did not help the issue.

So, I think I just need to remove Safari but it involves more than just moving it to the trash can.

Any help would be appreciated.
 

TETENAL

macrumors 6502
Nov 29, 2014
258
281
Turn off:

System Preferences → General → Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices
 

chabig

macrumors G4
Sep 6, 2002
11,460
9,326
Safari launches when you view web pages by default. So anything that opens to the web opens Safari. And when Safari is open you're going to see it in the Dock. If you don't want Safari to be your default browser, go to System Preferences > General and change the default web browser to your preferred app.
 

LD Curb

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 19, 2015
391
239
USA
Thanks, everyone. I don't have Safari as default on the Mac. I have it out of the dock and I "Quit" the application but it still appeared in my iPad dock. I think I may have stopped this from happening as I turned off Safari on the iPad here: General > Restrictions > and toggled Safari to "Off". So far ... so good!

EDIT: Well now it is putting my mail icon there ... even though that one is already in the dock. Ugh. I want to keep the handoff feature between the Mac and iPad so that I can get texts on both.
This is just so annoying!
 

TETENAL

macrumors 6502
Nov 29, 2014
258
281
You cannot disable handoff on a per application basis. I also find it annoying, so I turned it off.

If you save text documents into the iCloud you can also edit them on all devices without handoff.
 

chabig

macrumors G4
Sep 6, 2002
11,460
9,326
I don't think you understand what the Dock is. It's just like a "shelf" where application shortcuts can sit, and running applications can be manipulated. Removing an icon from the dock doesn't do anything to the app itself, and launching the app will return its icon to the dock.

You also seem confused about Handoff. You don't need handoff to get texts on both machines. As long as both are logged into your iCloud account you'll see the same texts on both.

So I have two recommendations:
1) Change your default web browser, as I previously suggested
2) Turn off handoff

or...learn to identify the Mail icon by sight
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.