You open a page and Safari stops with "Safari Can’t Open the Page — too many redirects occurred trying to open the address." The page never loads; it just bounces in a loop. The good news: this is almost never your Mac. It is one website’s cookies, a stale cache, or a setting on your end that the site trips over — and the fixes take about two minutes.
First: is it one site, or every site?
This tells you where the problem lives. Try a second, unrelated site (say, apple.com). If only the original site loops, it is that site’s cookies or your login state — start at fix #1. If every site loops, the cause is broader (date/time, a VPN/proxy, or a content blocker) — jump to fix #3. A "too many redirects" error is the browser refusing to keep bouncing after roughly 20 hops, so the goal is to break whatever is sending it back and forth.
The fixes, fastest first
1. Clear this one site’s cookies (not everything)
A corrupted or half-expired cookie is the #1 cause of a redirect loop. Fix just the offending site so you stay logged in everywhere else. In Safari, open Settings → Privacy → Manage Website Data, type the site’s name in the search box, select it, click Remove, then Done. Quit Safari (⌘Q), reopen, and load the page. This alone fixes the large majority of loops.
2. Try a Private window
A Private window ignores your existing cookies and cache, so it is a fast way to confirm the fix worked. Press ⌘⇧N and load the site. If it works in Private but not normally, your saved cookies were the problem — finish clearing them in fix #1. If it loops in Private too, move on.
3. Check your date, time, and time zone
A wrong clock breaks the secure handshake many sites use, and some respond by redirecting you in a loop. Open System Settings → General → Date & Time and turn on Set time and time zone automatically. If it is already on, toggle it off and back on. This is the single most common cause when every site loops.
4. Turn off content blockers and extensions
Ad blockers, privacy extensions, and content blockers rewrite requests — and sometimes strip the exact cookie or redirect a site needs, creating a loop. In Settings → Extensions, untick everything, and in Settings → Websites → Content Blockers turn blockers off for this site. Reload. If it works, re-enable extensions one at a time to find the culprit.
5. Flush the DNS cache
A stale DNS entry can point Safari at the wrong server, which then bounces you. Open Terminal (Applications → Utilities) and run sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder, enter your password, then reload the page. Our full guide to clearing every cache on a Mac walks through this step in more detail.
6. Turn off any VPN or proxy
A VPN or a proxy can land you in a region the site handles differently, triggering a redirect loop. Disconnect the VPN, then check System Settings → Network → (your connection) → Details → Proxies and make sure nothing is enabled that you did not set up. Reload.
7. Restart Safari, then your Mac
If the loop persists, quit Safari fully and restart the Mac. A restart clears in-memory state and network sockets that occasionally get stuck mid-redirect. It is the last on-your-end step — if the loop survives a restart and happens in a Private window on multiple sites, the problem is almost certainly on the website’s side.
The honest part: when it is the site, not you
If one specific site loops for you in Private mode, on a clean cache, with the right clock and no extensions — and other sites are fine — the redirect loop is a bug on their server (a misconfigured HTTP-to-HTTPS rule or a login redirect gone wrong). There is nothing to fix on your Mac; wait for them to correct it, or contact the site. If instead every site loops after you have tried all seven steps, that points at a deeper network or macOS issue worth a closer look — see our Safari slow or pages not loading guide for the broader diagnostic path.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does "too many redirects" actually mean?
The website told your browser to go somewhere else, that place told it to go back, and so on. After about 20 bounces Safari gives up to avoid an infinite loop and shows the error. It is a safety limit, not a crash.
Why does it happen on only one website?
Almost always a bad cookie or your login state for that specific site. Clearing that one site’s website data (fix #1) resolves it without logging you out of everything else.
Does "too many redirects" mean my Mac has a virus?
No. It is a browser/website interaction, not malware. If you are worried about a used Mac’s overall health, our guides library covers how to check a Mac top to bottom.
Chrome loads the site but Safari loops — why?
Chrome has its own separate cookies and cache, so it is not carrying Safari’s bad cookie. That is a strong sign fix #1 (clear the site’s data in Safari) will solve it.
I cleared cookies and it still loops. Now what?
Work down the list: check your date & time (fix #3), disable content blockers (fix #4), flush DNS (fix #5), and drop any VPN (fix #6). If it survives all of those in a Private window on more than one site, the loop is on the website’s end.
At LuxuriousComputers, every refurbished Mac we sell is fully tested and backed by our own warranty — so a quirky browser error is never a mystery about the hardware. Browse our Mac guides anytime.