How to change the user agent string in Safari without extensions?
Jul 11, 2025 am 12:48 AMOn macOS, you can modify Safari's User Agent through developer tools or terminals, but iOS/iPadOS does not support it. The specific methods are: 1. Use the developer tools to modify temporarily: select preset UA after enabling the development menu; 2. Permanently modify through the terminal: enter the command to write a custom UA; 3. iOS/iPadOS cannot be modified directly, and you need to use a third-party application or browser.
In Safari browser, it is indeed possible if you want to modify the User Agent string without using the extension, but the method is not as intuitive as other browsers. Apple has many restrictions on Safari, especially on mobile devices (iOS/iPadOS). However, there are still some native ways to temporarily change the User Agent on macOS.

Use the developer tool to temporarily modify the User Agent
Safari provides built-in developer tools that can simulate different User Agents, which are suitable for debugging website behavior or testing mobile pages.
The operation steps are as follows:

- Open Safari and go to "Preferences" → "Advanced" → Check "Show 'Development' menu in the menu bar"
- After refreshing the page, click "Development" in the top menu bar → "Enter Development Mode" (some versions are automatically enabled)
- Click "Development" → "User Agent" → Select the preset UA string (such as iPhone, iPad, Chrome, Firefox, etc.)
Tip: You can also hold down the Option key and then click the "User Agent" menu, and more device options will appear.
This method only takes effect on the current page. The selected UA will still be maintained after refreshing the page, but the default will be restored after closing the tab or restarting Safari.

Permanently modify User Agent through terminal on macOS (advanced)
If you want to set up a fixed User Agent for the entire Safari, it can be achieved by modifying the preference file, but this requires using Terminal and has some risks.
The specific operations are as follows:
- Close Safari
- Open "Terminal" and enter the following command:
defaults write com.apple.Safari CustomUserAgent '"Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"'
- Replace the string above for the UA you want
- Restart Safari and the User Agent will be modified
Note: This method is only valid on macOS and some websites may detect inconsistent behavioral characteristics. If you want to restore the original UA, just delete the key value:
defaults delete com.apple.Safari CustomUserAgent
User Agent cannot be modified directly on iOS/iPadOS
On iPhone or iPad, Safari does not provide macOS-like developer tools, nor does it allow similar modifications through configuration files or terminals (unless jailbreaking). Therefore, it is impossible to change the User Agent on these devices without the help of third-party applications or browsers.
You might consider using a third-party browser that supports custom UA, such as Firefox or Chrome (via remote debugging), but that is beyond the scope of "not using extensions".
Basically that's it. Although Safari's control over User Agent is not as flexible as Chrome, some customization needs can be achieved on macOS through the developer menu or terminal. Just remember that most of these methods are suitable for temporary debugging or advanced users, and ordinary users don’t know how to use them very well.
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