[4] Sunset began in 1898[5] as a promotional magazine for the Southern Pacific Railroad, designed to combat the negative "Wild West" stereotypes about California.

Poetry featuring railroad themes and a later string of short stories in which characters swapped tall tales, always aboard a train, also highlighted travel by rail.

The issue opened with a dire communiqué from E. H. Harriman, president of the Southern Pacific: "The earthquake on the morning of April 18th was the most severe that has occurred since San Francisco became a great city".

In "A San Francisco Pleasure Cure", an early story by Sinclair Lewis published in the magazine, a tired businessman revived himself through a visit to the rebuilt city.

[9] The Theodore Roosevelt administration indicted the editor, writer, photographer, and aviator associated with a story entitled "Can the Panama Canal be destroyed from the air?"

Among the promises were reporting from war correspondent Arthur Street, who the magazine sent to Asia to cover the impacts of war and the opening of the Panama Canal on the world; reporting in North America supported by the purchase of a new automobile; coverage of international expositions such as the Panama–Pacific International Exposition; responses to inquiries of a newly-established service bureau, to field questions from readers about relocating to the western U.S. and other matters; and a renewed commitment to fiction and photography.

Fiction and poetry became more ambitious, featuring authors such as Jack London,[6] Dashiell Hammett, Mary Austin, and evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson.

In 1929, Lawrence W. Lane, a former advertising executive with Better Homes and Gardens, purchased Sunset, and changed the format to its current Western lifestyle emphasis.

Essays on home architecture became more specifically geared to the West, with a series of sumptuously photographed articles championing the Western ranch house.

Under Lane's leadership, the company also produced a successful series of how-to home improvement and gardening books, which are still published today [citation needed].

Drawing on his experience from the East Coast-serving Better Homes and Gardens, he guessed correctly that these new Westerners would be hungry for information about how to travel, cook, cultivate, and build in their new environment.

Newer, fresher-looking lifestyle magazines, such as Martha Stewart Living and Real Simple, presented Sunset with competition.

[citation needed] The Menlo Park campus at 80 Willow Road was sold to a San Francisco real estate development firm by Time Warner in 2014 for more than $75 million.

[20] The magazine's extensive archival collection, including numerous original photographs and administrative papers, would not be brought to the new Oakland location, and was acquired by Stanford University.

[21] On November 30, 2017 Time Inc. sold Sunset to Regent, L.P. a global private equity firm led by Beverly Hills based investor Michael Reinstein.

[6] After sale of the magazine to Regent, Sunset launched a round of personnel cuts, leaving it with fewer than 20 employees, a mere one-fifth of its staff just five years previously.

[6] In March 2020, with the magazine struggling financially due to loss of advertising revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company put most of its employees on unpaid leave.

[23] Since 1957, Sunset's Western Home Awards program, cosponsored by the American Institute of Architects, has introduced readers to works by Richard Neutra, Charles Moore, Frank Gehry, and Calvin C. Straub, among other notables.