How exactly does Adobe Flash work in Safari on macOS Sierra? Read our guide to find out.
macOS Sierra is upon us, and with it comes a new version of Safari. Along with new features like Apple Pay, Safari 10 in Sierra will treat Flash — along with other so-called "legacy plug-ins" — a bit differently than it has in the past.
For one thing, Flash is off by default.
How Flash works in Safari on macOS Sierra
In macOS Sierra, Adobe's Flash plug-in will be turned off in Safari by default to encourage users — and websites — to use HTML5 for features like video. This is because Flash is easily exploitable, and if someone with nefarious intentions hacks the plug-in or the site, Apple previously couldn't prevent users from being exposed. That's changed with Safari on macOS Sierra.

However, there are some sites and services, such as Hulu, Spotify, and Pandora, that require the use of Flash for video playback, music streaming, and more. When you visit one of these sites in Safari, by default you'll see either a black screen with a button saying Click to use Flash or the website will encourage you to download Flash. If Flash is installed, when you click the link to download, you'll be presented with a dialogue box asking if you want to use Flash on the current site just once, or every time you visit. Clicking either will allow you to watch the video as you normally would.
In addition to these new Flash permissions, you can also control these settings on a more granular basis in Safari's Security settings. Here's how.
How to manage Adobe Flash in Safari
- Open Safari.
- Click on Safari in the Menu bar and select Preferences.
Click the Security tab.

Select Plug-in Settings.
Click the box next to Adobe Flash Player to activate the plug-in.

Use the drop-down next to your currently open websites to select whether those sites should use Flash, leave it off, or ask to use it when you visit them.
Under When visiting other websites, choose whether all websites sites should use Flash, leave it off, or ask to use it when you visit them.

Hit Done.

Questions?
Want to know more about how Flash and Safari operate in macOS Sierra? Let us know below.

Reader comments
How Flash works with Safari 10 in macOS Sierra
How to use Flash Player in macOS Sierra.
1. Do nothing
Flash player is slow, buggy and resource-intensive which will drain your battery. There's a reason why iOS never included it, there's a reason why Android removed it. If you _really_ need to use Flash Player for a website that requires it, just install Google Chrome and use that for Flash content, it comes with a sandboxed version so there's no real security issues
Flash is often associated with Video, but that's not all its used for.
Your FUD is not helpful.
Flash is rarely used on the internet anymore as there are viable replacements for any use of it, and Flash is just terrible. As I mentioned, it's slow, buggy, resource-intensive, and it also creates security-concerns if not used in a sandboxed environment. That being said, I didn't say you couldn't still use Flash content, I just recommend Chrome as it sandboxes it in Chrome's environment and it doesn't allow it to be accessed anywhere outside of Chrome.
There are some UK TV catch-up websites that still use Flash for video, and my mom has to put up with it being slow, jumpy and sometimes crashing. She asks me why it crashes and there's no advice I can offer to her. We shouldn't be using technology that causes these kind of issues in 2016
I look forward to the day when I can run iOS apps on my desktop/laptop. If only for video apps like Hulu & Netflix. Microsoft at least TRIED to get this to work, but those apps come with their own bugs.
Netflix should support HTML5 video
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742
It works on Windows (See Netflix, etc.). Just need developers to develop - and SUPPORT - the apps. Bugs don't fix themselves ;-)
Thanks iMore.
Isaiah Heart.