How to enable pop-ups on Mac

The modern web is a distraction disaster. Every website you visit wants you to buy something, subscribe to its newsletter, or simply overload you with in-your-face ads. And most of these call-to-actions are flying at you with pop-ups — the most invasive kind of notifications. 

So it’s no wonder that there has recently been a spike in user demand for how to remove pop-ups. Most browsers have responded accordingly and now all of them — Safari, Firefox, and Google Chrome — have features that stop pop-ups in their tracks. Some, like Safari pop-up blocker, even go as far as to enable its protection by default.

In over 90% of cases, pop-up blockers are doing a great job. But occasionally you might come across a website that uses pop-ups as a way of interacting with you — so it’s impossible to use the website if you don’t see pop-ups. It could be a gateway to a public WiFi connection, a payment confirmation, or even an age verification screen. Then you might wonder how to turn off pop-up blocker on Mac. 

If you ask yourself, “How do I allow pop-ups on Mac?” You’ve come to exactly the right place. In this guide, we’ll cover how to allow pop-ups in every major browser as well as some tips that will help you conquer the true evil — the never-ending wave of distractions. Let’s get to it. 

How to allow pop-ups on Mac in Safari 

Since Safari is quite dominant among Mac users, it’s good to know the ways you can control its pop-up blocker. To open Safari pop-up blocker and allow pop-ups:

1. Go to the Safari Preferences
2. Navigate to the Websites tab
3. Click on ‘Pop-up Windows’ in the sidebar
4. Open the dropdown for any currently active website and choose ‘Allow’
5. Open the dropdown for “When visiting other websites” and also choose ‘Allow.’

When Safari pop-up blocker is working (meaning, something is being blocked), it shows a tiny red notification in the address bar. If you click on it, you’ll see the option to view the blocked window — so if you just need to check the blocked pop-up once, you don’t even have to tweak any Safari pop-up blocker settings. 

Also remember that the changes to the blocker don’t have to be by any means permanent. Say you’ve just made an online payment, but the website is asking you for some additional information through a series of pop-up windows. Simply change ‘Block’ to ‘Allow’ on that website in the Safari pop-up blocker and reset again once you’re done.

How to allow pop-ups in Safari for one website 

If you want to allow pop-ups only for select websites — or even just one website — you can do it using Safari’s pop-up blocker: 

1. Open the website your want to allow pop-ups from
2. Go to the Safari Preferences
3. Navigate to the Websites tab
4. Click on ‘Pop-up Windows’ in the sidebar
5. Find the website on the list, open its dropdown, and choose ‘Allow.’ 

If you don’t want to open the website every time, just to allow pop-ups, an easier solution is to use AdLock. Essentially an ad blocker that disables ads, pop-ups, and notifications on the web, it has the Allow List, where you can add every website that should come with pop-ups. 

How to unblock pop-ups on Mac in Chrome

When it comes to the most widely used browser in the world, it doesn’t disappoint in its ability to control random pop-up windows.

To allow or stop pop-ups in Chrome:

1. Go to the Chrome Settings
2. Access ‘Privacy and security’
3. Click ‘Site setting’ and then “Pop-ups and redirects”
4. Choose the default behavior — allow or block pop-ups in Chrome. 

Similarly to Safari, Chrome allows for one-off exceptions via the address bar. A small icon will indicate that something has been blocked, and you’ll have an option to allow pop-ups from that website (once or always).

Enable pop-ups in Chrome for one website

To allow pop-ups for select websites in Chrome, you can either use AdLock, the universal solution we’ve mentioned before, or tweak some Chrome settings: 

1. Go to the Chrome Settings
2. Access ‘Privacy and security’
3. Click ‘Site setting’ and then “Pop-ups and redirects”
4. Click ‘Add’ next to ‘Allowed to send pop-ups and redirects’ and add your website. 

How to enable pop-ups on Mac in Firefox

If you’re using Firefox as your main browser, here’s the answer to how to enable pop-ups: 

1. In Firefox, click on the burger menu and choose Settings
2. Click Privacy & Security in the sidebar and scroll down to Permissions
3. Uncheck the ‘Block pop-up windows’ box
4. Open the Exceptions dialog box if you want some websites to ignore the standard settings. 

How to get rid of all distractions

Without a doubt, learning how to stop pop-ups on Mac is invaluable to our inner peace. But pop-ups only represent a small part of what’s actually distracting us from getting things done all day long. Think of notifications, chats, multiple app windows being open at once, and even a messy desktop — all that takes more of our attention than it deserves. 

HazeOver is the ultimate screen dimmer that keeps your active window clear and darkens everything else on your monitor. Suddenly, you don’t see anything distracting and are able to focus on the task at hand. For multitaskers that all of us are today this is much better than going full screen on every app, since you don’t lose your ability to jiggle all the apps you need to get work done, especially when you have more than one monitor.

Besides, HazeOver is the perfect solution for working at night, since you’re not hit with all the light on your screen, but the active area is still clear. In a similar fashion, you can enjoy movies and TV shows with a nice dim ambiance. 

If some distractions still break through HazeOver, or you have a hard time keeping yourself from checking Twitter every hour, you need Focus. 

Focus, as the name might suggest, is a complete solution for eliminating distractions. This lightweight utility lets you block any websites or apps that stand between you and your goals. Instead, you’ll be shown a motivational quote to inspire you to continue to fight the good fight. 

Blocking with Focus can be bundled or targeted, ad hoc or scheduled — you’re in control, and you can even track your progress week to week with the app’s built-in analytics and graphs. Who’s lazy now? 

To sum up, being able to balance the need to focus with the knowledge of how to remove pop-up blockers when you need to is crucial. And all it takes is just a few apps. 

AdLock, HazeOver, and Focus mentioned above are available to you during a free trial of Setapp, a productivity platform for Mac and iPhone users. Sign up to try them all, plus many more that will help set up numerous automations and get your tasks done. Or, make use of your browser’s built-in settings to deal with pop-ups. Your call!