How to Add a Start Page Wallpaper in macOS Safari 14

[MacRumors]

Ahead of the release of macOS Big Sur, Apple has released the Safari 14 update for macOS Catalina and macOS Mojave users, bringing with it a number of new features and improvements.

One of the most dramatic changes is the overhauled Start Page, which now includes a browsing privacy report, iCloud tabs, Siri suggestions, and more. It also features several customizable options, such as the ability to choose your own Start Page wallpaper.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1306830592458153984

The new Safari 14 update can be downloaded by opening up System Preferences and choosing the Software Update option. Once the update is installed, you can choose your own Start Page wallpaper by following the steps below.

1. Launch Safari 14 on your Mac.
   Click the Settings icon in the bottom-right corner of the Start Page.
   
   
   Click the checkbox next to the Background Image option if it isn't already ticked.
   
   
   Choose one of the wallpapers from the gallery carousel. Alternately, click the plus (+) button to open a file browser dialog and select another image on your Mac.
   

As well as a new Start Page, Safari 14 brings improved performance and a new tab bar design that provides tab previews so you can see what you have open at a glance. For more on the security content in Safari 14, check out Apple's release notes.

Article Link: How to Add a Start Page Wallpaper in macOS Safari 14

 

[tlvisser]

taking away top sites was worst move ever. I hate safari now.

 

[4jasontv]

Links for the best wallpapers please.

 

[Tech198]

i never used top sites .....

 

[Kierkegaarden]

Looks nice. Along with iOS 14 custom widgets and icons, I hope this level of customization is a trend that Apple with embrace further.

 

[insomniac86]

taking away top sites was worst move ever. I hate safari now.

I think you will find Frequently visited is the Top Sites renamed.
At least for me it's a mirror image of what my Top Sites was.

 

[travelsheep]

People at BING design-team were like "first they will laugh, then they will ignore, then they will adapt..."

 

[CJ Dorschel]

I don't know what I'm either doing wrong or what has changed with Safari 14 but I have to constantly manually remove website data from Safari in Privacy - Manage Website Data. Just hitting the same sites I always have on a daily basis, the trail of sites listed numbers in the hundreds. I clear my history daily and have used Cookie to help manage/clean up my website data but the amount of sites - most I never visit - is out of control. I have Content Blockers on and Block and Notify Pop-up Windows with a few exceptions. Are there settings in Safari 14 to keep website data from being saved? I know it's not necessarily saving cookies and data in my home Library folder, I just simply like to maintain control/privacy and don't understand why Apple is listing sites that don't store cookies under website data or if there is a way to stop it.

 

[Bokito]

taking away top sites was worst move ever. I hate safari now.

I kinda use top sites as a replacement for bookmarks. I don’t use bookmarks as it takes ages to organize it properly. Top sites was just bookmarks but without having to do anything for it. I haven’t upgraded yet, but I hopefully they’ll release Safari 14.1 with top sites.

 

[insomniac86]

I kinda use top sites as a replacement for bookmarks. I don’t use bookmarks as it takes ages to organize it properly. Top sites was just bookmarks but without having to do anything for it. I haven’t upgraded yet, but I hopefully they’ll release Safari 14.1 with top sites.

Ekk, that's not a good way of using it.
Top Sites would be purged every time you clear your browser history.
Bookmarks will stay forever.

I also fail to see your logic with this statement "I don’t use bookmarks as it takes ages to organize it properly"
Top sites doesn't allow you to organise them anyway. So why don't you just save your top sites under the Favourites section? It literally doesn't take anytime to organise. You just pop them all in and it will list them the same way as Top sites did.

 

[apparatchik]

Since installing Safari 14.0 Ive been hit with out of Application memory alerts... with Safari using 56 GB of memory.. with barely 4 tabs opened. Seems to me there’s a serious memory leak issue going on, the RAM/Swap used skyrockets with time regardless of tabs, etc...

 

[travelsheep]

Links for the best wallpapers please.

www.wetransfer.com ... one of the best and cleanest webdesigns ever IMO, always with inspiring wallpapers

 

[coolfactor]

I honestly can't fathom why a Start Page is so loved. Do people actually use it? I guess I've had mine set to "no page" for so long and I'm used to manually going to sites that I want to go to, I've disconnected from this reality.
[automerge]1600927341[/automerge]

Since installing Safari 14.0 Ive been hit with out of Application memory alerts... with Safari using 56 GB of memory.. with barely 4 tabs opened. Seems to me there’s a serious memory leak issue going on, the RAM/Swap used skyrockets with time regardless of tabs, etc...

I use Safari all day long (as a website developer) and have not noticed any memory issues. It likely depends on the sites that you're visiting. It's possible that those sites have some code issues that could be fixed within them.

 

[skir]

Safari is the (only) browser that does not respect pinch-to-zoom. Google Maps, any other maps, some other sites — instead of zooming out Safari suddenly shows some crappy page I never used in my life, and am not going to. And you cannot disable this behavior, AFAIK.

I can turn on showing URL tooltips for links on hover somewhere deep in Settings (this is vital — I want to know what link I am going to click). I cannot install EFF Privacy Badger yet (I use it as my trusted adblock), but with the support of standard plugins I hope I will be able to, eventually.

But this pinch-to-zoom ignorance is a blocker for me.

 

[nexu]

I don't like the tab behavior in Safari 14. Wish there was an option for scrolling through tabs like before, it was much more convenient. When you have too many tabs open, the new favicon-only tabs are driving me crazy

 

[Spacetime Anomaly]

Something to look at for all of a second while you type the first two letters of a website and hit Enter.

 

[jasonefmonk]

I really enjoy the dynamic blocking of trackers and the privacy report. I used to need an extension for this.

 

[AndiG]

Is Big Sur really that terrible? I'm frightened of the round round round corners, the transparent menubar (we had this terrible thing already), colors, transparency everywhere and I hope that I don't have to install it for a really long time.

I'm really starting to feel more at home when I compare my Gnome desktop

to Big Sur

But maybe the desktop wallpaper of Big S is driving me crazy and turns this desktop into something that doesn't look like a work environment. Hopefully most of this glittering stuff can be disabled. The image feels like a train full of screaming passengers passing by ...

 

[MacinMan]

For a while now, I've primarily used Safari as my password manager, because of the iCloud Keychain feature. This goes for any card info, and it's also good for Apple pay as well, If I want to use that feature, but am on the Mac vs iPad, or phone. I still need the phone to confirm with touch ID since I don't have a Mac with TouchID built in. It has been a nice option to have though for those Apple specific features. As an everyday browser though, I prefer Firefox. I look at it this way: I don't want to be locked into one platform for everything, so I look for software / options that would be the same no matter what operating system I needed / wanted to use. I also keep a copy of Chrome installed as well for Google specific features such as Chromecast, but I find more and more if I want to do that, I'll just use the phone, or iPad.

The screenshots of the start images look nice though. I may try it at some point just to see what it looks like in person.
When I upgraded Firefox to version 81, I read the release notes. Sounds like they are incorporating more of the features I use in Safari into Firefox. If this is true, It will be nice to have more options that aren't Apple only.

 

[tha_man]

It's great that I can see reading list below favorites, everything else I have disabled. I don't like start page wallpapers at all, much prefer the transcluent effect that my desktop wallpaper makes.

 

[Poncho]

Ekk, that's not a good way of using it.
Top Sites would be purged every time you clear your browser history.
Bookmarks will stay forever.

I also fail to see your logic with this statement "I don’t use bookmarks as it takes ages to organize it properly"
Top sites doesn't allow you to organise them anyway. So why don't you just save your top sites under the Favourites section? It literally doesn't take anytime to organise. You just pop them all in and it will list them the same way as Top sites did.

Not true on Safari 12.1.2. Clearing history does not remove your Top Sites. Also, you can re-arrange them by unpinning them and shuffling them around before pinning them back again.

 

[Unsupported]

Since installing Safari 14.0 Ive been hit with out of Application memory alerts... with Safari using 56 GB of memory.. with barely 4 tabs opened. Seems to me there’s a serious memory leak issue going on, the RAM/Swap used skyrockets with time regardless of tabs, etc...

I see this alert in Safari, but only when using Facebook. It happened too before the latest release:

 

[Unsupported]

I use Safari all day long (as a website developer) and have not noticed any memory issues. It likely depends on the sites that you're visiting. It's possible that those sites have some code issues that could be fixed within them.

I only see this alert while logged in to Facebook.

 

[mazz0]

Is Big Sur really that terrible? I'm frightened of the round round round corners, the transparent menubar (we had this terrible thing already), colors, transparency everywhere and I hope that I don't have to install it for a really long time.

I'm really starting to feel more at home when I compare my Gnome desktop

Gnome needs to settle on where menus belong if you aks me. It's a nice UI apart from that.

 

[Traverse]

I mean, I am always a fan of more customization. However, when they showed off this feature the first thing that came to mind was how Windows-Like like this seemed. People clearly want customization just look at the explosion of iOS 14 widgets