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Having trouble reading Safari's tiny fonts on your Mac? It's easy to make all of the smallest fonts in Safari bigger by default with a quick change in Safari Preferences. Here's how.

In Safari, you may be familiar with increasing or decreasing the font size on a website-to-website basis using the Command+Plus ("+") and Command+Minus ("-") keyboard shortcuts. But if you don't want to fiddle with those settings for every site, Safari allows you to increase the minimum font size and have it apply to all the websites you visit.

A web page in Safari using the default (12-point) font size.
A web page in Safari using the default (12-point) font size.

This is similar to Safari's Page Zoom feature. While the zoom feature enlarges both the content and the text, the font size feature retains the original page formatting and doesn't touch the media on the page.

RELATED: How to Set a Default Zoom Level in Safari for Mac

To get started, open the Safari browser on your Mac. Click "Safari" in the top menu bar and choose "Preferences" from the drop-down menu.

Go to Preferences in Safari

In Safari Preferences, click the "Advanced" tab.

Go to Advanced Tab in Safari Preferences

In the "Advanced" tab, locate the "Accessibility" section and click the check mark next to "Never Use Font Sizes Smaller Than." In the drop-down menu, choose between "14," "18," or "24" -point font sizes.

If you find the text really hard to read, go with the 24-point font size, which will double the default text size for most websites. However, for some people, the 18-point size is the sweet spot.

Enable "Never Use Font Sizes Smaller Than" Option

Instantly, you will see the text in all open websites change to a larger size.

Text in Safari at 24 Points
A web page in Safari using the 24-point minimum font size.

If you change your mind later and want the smaller font sizes back, click "Safari" in the menu bar and navigate to Preferences > Advanced, and then uncheck the "Never Use Font Sizes Smaller Than" option. Alternately, you can simply select a smaller font size from the menu.

If you'd like to do the same thing on your iPhone or iPad, you can't make a blanket change that applies to all websites, but you can increase or decrease the font size on any web page in Safari in just a few taps. Happy browsing!

RELATED: How to Change a Website's Text Size in Safari for iPhone and iPad


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