Mastering Safari, learning now to manage and tame your bookmarks
Written by: Scott Haneda on Wednesday February 27th 2008, 10:30 am
Filed under: Applications, OS X 10.4, OS X 10.5, Safari
Every browser I am aware of has the ability to save a bookmark. A bookmark is nothing more than a way to get back to a site at some later time. Most users, at some point, will bookmark a site, with the idea that they can come back to it later and keep updated on what the site has to offer.
The problem as I see it, with bookmarks, is you end up with an unmanageable list of links to sites. Over time, this list will grow to the point that it becomes easier to simply search Google for the site. If your bookmarks menu has gotten somewhat out of control; this tutorial will teach you basic organizational tactics allowing you to tame your bookmarks.
The bookmarks menu
The bookmarks menu, as shown below, has all the basic features you can access in regards to bookmarking. You have quick access to your bookmarks bar, the ability to add new bookmarks, see all your bookmarks, or even add a folder to help organize your bookmarks.
The bookmarks manager
If you select “Show All Bookmarks” from the “Bookmarks” menu, Safari will drop you into the bookmark editing area. It is here you have full control over all your bookmarks, as well as the bookmarks bar.
You can also access the bookmark manager by clicking on the small book icon on the left of your bookmarks bar. Of course, you need your bookmark bar set to visible, which was covered in Mastering Safari’s bookmarks bar.
Making a bookmark
Making a bookmark is simple, simply select “Add Bookmark” from the Bookmarks menu, or press command-D on your keyboard. A small sheet will pop down asking you what to name the bookmark, as well as where in your bookmark structure you want it saved. The name should default to the title of the site you are bookmarking.
One nice feature of adding a bookmark is that it will be saved to the same location as the last bookmark that was saved. I plan on exploiting this feature to a degree.
Exploring the Bookmark Manager
The bookmark manager has two sections, Collections and Bookmarks. You may not see a section called “Bookmarks” at first. If you have never dragged a bookmark to the side of the bookmark manager, this feature will not be visible.
Starting with the Bookmarks section, you can drag a URL out of the URL bar in Safari, and store them here. To me, this seems counterintuitive, as this section is not accessible from any other area than the bookmark editor. As far as I know, you cannot get to these bookmarks from any menu in Safari.
If you want to store items in the Bookmarks area of the bookmark manger, by all means do so. I find it takes too long to jump from Safari’s browser view, into the bookmark manager, locate which bookmark I want to use, and then double click it.
Collections
Collections are where I spend most of my time in Safari when managing my bookmarks. We already covered the Bookmarks Bar section of collections. Today, let’s focus on the Bookmarks Menu.
Designing a workflow
The following are all suggestions. This is how I work in Safari, and how I manage bookmarks. This may or may not suit your workflow. My hope is that you can take these general ideas, and adapt them to your personal needs.
As you can see, I set up my bookmark manager with a few simple folders, and one subfolder. When I am making a bookmark to a site, I want to do so quickly, and get on with what I’m doing. In order to accomplish this, I have built a structure of folders to store bookmarks in. While it takes a second to pick where to store a bookmark, in the long run, I feel like I am saving time.
At the very least, I end up with a collection of bookmarks that are simple to manage. This method will allow you to easily know which bookmarks are safe to delete, and which you may want to keep around for a while longer.
Starting with the Temporary folder. This is where I will put a bookmark to a site I know I will only visit once. I may be surfing around, and decide I need to come back to something, but it is not highly important that I do return. Temporary acts as a trash can for various site URL’s that are interesting, but ok if I forget about. Once a week, I delete everything in this folder.
Check Later, as you can see, has a sub folder in it called Done. The Check Later folder is perhaps the most valuable to my workflow.
In the example image above, I have three items in the Check Later folder. One is a forum post where I asked someone a question. The second is a link to a post here at OS X Help, as I wanted to follow the comments. And the third is a link to a bug report I filed with another software developer.
Every few days I will check in on each of these, and see if there has been any progress or updates to the bookmark. If there has, and this issue is resolved, I simply move the bookmark to the Done folder. In general, I leave the Done folder as is and allow it to fill up. Maybe once a year I might be inclined to clean it up. I certainly do not manage it daily, as that would waste too much of my time.
Check Later can hold anything from eBay auctions you want to keep an eye on, to forum posts you are following. Any website that has something I will be interested in for a short period of time, ends up in the Check Later area.
The Daily folder is pretty self-explanatory. Sites that I visit once a day, end up here. Before the more advanced users cry foul, this would indeed better be served by using RSS. We have not covered RSS yet; I feel this is an acceptable method in the meantime.
Below that you can see I have folders for Work, Shopping, Banking, and Research. These are what suit my needs. You will of course want to create folders that work for you.
Perhaps you spend a lot of time on a photography website, you may want to make a folder for all the sites you visit in that category.
Setting up your bookmark structure
If you want to create a similar folder structure, it is relatively simple. Select the “Bookmarks Menu” item on the left, go to the Bookmark menu, and select “Add Bookmark Folder”. At that point, you can move them around, move one into another, delete mistakes, or change the name. The entire area is built on dragging and dropping items around; organize them as you see fit.
Putting it to use
Now that you have this structure all set up, it is time to make a bookmark. If you are like me, the Temp bookmark folder is where most of your bookmarks are going to go. Next time you decide to bookmark a site, select that folder from the pop down sheet. All future bookmarks will have your last used bookmark folder as the default selection.
Eventually, you can quickly press command-D and then return. In one quick motion, you have now added a bookmark and can get back to whatever you were doing. Next time you have a spare moment of free time, you can peruse your Temp bookmark folder, and see what you wanted to follow up on. Some you may want to keep, in that case, move them to the appropriate folder in Safari’s bookmark manager.
Alphabetize your bookmarks
In a past post, a reader asked how to alphabetize your bookmarks. Bookmarks are interesting in that they are entered in the order you make them, so your oldest bookmarks will be near the top, and your newest near the bottom. The name of the bookmark has no relevance on how it is sorted.
The only way I have found to accomplish this is to take the folder of bookmarks you want to put into alphabetical order, and drag it to your Desktop. This will make a copy of that folder. Now drag the folder back into Safari’s bookmark manager.
At this point, you will have a duplicate folder in Safari. Delete the folder that is not alphabetized; leave the one you just dragged in as it is. Finally, you can also delete the folder of bookmarks you put on your desktop.
Share your ideas
This is by no means a definitive set of rules to managing your bookmarks. Merely a suggestion to get you started. Please share your own organizational tips in the comments below.
wow - great tips and it all transferred to my iPhone, making it much easier to deal with.
Comment by Dan Mosqueda 02.29.08 @ 2:16 pmThanks. I had figured out much of what you wrote and implemented some of it. Your thinking was more complete than mine and I will implement most of your suggestions.
Comment by Bob Perdriau 03.03.08 @ 12:05 am@Bob, thanks. You get the idea perfect, we are just trying to get people to start thinking in a certain way. Every user will have a unique case, and they can and are encouraged to modify to suit their needs. We are just trying to lay an idea framework, and see what everyone else comes up with.
Comment by Scott Haneda 03.03.08 @ 3:03 amThank you, I really needed this. My bookmarks are a mess, even my folders need better organization.
Comment by bill mirra 03.05.08 @ 12:54 pmI make HUGE use of the Bookmarks Bar.
I place folders there and then create sub-folders by relevancy in a hierarchical system which allows me access to hundreds of websites very quickly.
If a folder gets larger than what will appear on the screen without scrolling; I will create new sub-folders in that category so that I can quickly drill down to find the site I want.
I also use Auto-Click for opening in tabs, for example, my “Daily Read” which consists of 12 different IT related sites, of which “OS X Help” is one.
Safari is the best browser for me.
Cheers:
Bob
@WetcoastBob, thanks so much for your suggestions. That was the main point of this post. That while I have a certain method, everyone needs to develop their own that works for them.
You seem to have a solid solution that works great for you. Others can follow by my example, and also by WetcoastBob’s as well. Use bits and pieces until you get your browser working just how you want it.
Comment by Scott Haneda 03.10.08 @ 9:16 amhttp://www.sheepsystems.com/bookdog
‘Bookdog’ is the best.Alphabetizes, reviews,(on a schedule you determine) eliminates dups, also a friendly puppy you never have to feed or walk !
Help! How can I find out which folder I have stored certain bookmarks in? The find menu only takes me to the bookmark (and opens) it but doesn’t show me where it actually is. I have a lot of bookmarks I’ve placed somewhere and can only find them individually with this search. Spotlight does the same thing.
Thanks for any ideas.
@generosner, while you are in the search mode, there is a column called “parent”. This lists the name of the folder your bookmark is in.
Comment by Scott Haneda 05.07.08 @ 5:10 amI have a huge number of duplicates in my bookmarks. I believe these were caused by some flaw in sync services since the problem appeared after my fist attempt to sync Bookmarks using .mac. Any recommendation on how to resolve duplicated including multiple BookMarks Menu and BookMarks Bar folders? And now I have a Bookmarks Bar and a Bookmarks Menu Collection for more redundancy. What is that all about?
Comment by James 05.08.08 @ 8:42 am@James, as far as I know, BookDog is the tool for you. I think you could use the demo to clean out what you need, and then not need it again. It does look like a pretty handy app though.
Comment by Scott Haneda 05.11.08 @ 3:07 am@Nathan, deleting bookmarks is covered in the post above. Just go to your bookmark manager, find the bookmark you want to delete, and press the delete key on your keyboard.
Comment by Scott Haneda 05.11.08 @ 3:08 amThe number 25 has appeared in my bookmark bar after the name of one of my folders - I have 143 bookmarks in the folder - the name on the bar reads- Design Blogs (25) - don’t know what its about - but its driving me crazy - any suggestions - by the by - does not appear in the name when I go to rename the folder in show all bookmarks - thanks
Comment by maki podell 11.04.08 @ 11:07 am@maki, I believe you have added an RSS item to your bookmark bar, and that is showing you the unread count of new posts. I think if you look at this post on RSS in Safari, it may make some sense to you.
Comment by Scott Haneda 11.04.08 @ 8:03 pmI can’t seem to nest folders (achieve a hierarchical structure). I highlight one folder, drag it to another, and nothing happens. What am I not doing? (I am able to change the folder order in the display.) Thanks for any help.
Comment by Javier 11.27.08 @ 10:02 am@Javier, perhaps try opening the folder, and putting it in the folder. I can only guess you are simply not being accurate enough when you drop the folder, so it ends up where you do not want, or ends up not moving.
If you could perhaps try to explain in as much detail as possible how you are trying this, and what the result is, I am sure someone here can help.
Comment by Scott Haneda 11.28.08 @ 10:30 pmI added a bunch of bookmarks while doing an assignment. I finished and deleted all the bookmarks for the assignment. Now, my regular bookmarks are aligned to the left, no longer center. Is there any way to fix it? Thanks
Comment by Al 12.04.08 @ 8:05 pm@Al, I am not entirely sure I follow you with your question. Can you elaborate, as I have never seen bookmarks centered before. They are left justified in all the places that I have ever looked at a bookmark.
Comment by Scott Haneda 12.04.08 @ 10:17 pmAt the top of safari, underneath where the URL is entered, the bookmarks are listed
Comment by Al 12.06.08 @ 11:29 pm@Al, seems you are talking about the bookmarks bar, not the bookmarks menu. We have a pretty good walkthrough on the bookmarks bar.
I would start there. The only think I can think is you had your bookmarks bar set up in the past, in a way in which the first few items in it were empty items, giving it the appearance that they were right justified.
The bookmarks bar always works from left to right. Once you read the tutorial, let me know if it is still not clear, on how to edit, maintain, and manage it. If you still have issues, do not hesitate to fire off some more questions.
Comment by Scott Haneda 12.07.08 @ 5:21 pmThis a a problem I cannot figure out, and has asked alot of people, and they cannot figure it out either. Safari is my main browser on my mac. Some time ago, I am not sure what happened, but I must of hit just the right amount of buttons at once, and I lost my ability to edit my bookmarks.
Below the address bar, you have your single bookmarks and your bookmark folders. At the far left is a icon that looks like a open book. When you click on it normally, it opens the whole bookmark page where you can edit everything, reorganize, ect. Now, when I click on the open book icon, a gray bar appears at the bottom of the screen with a plus sign on the left. Nothing happens when I click on the plus sign.
What did I do?
Comment by Jason 12.30.08 @ 1:23 pm@Jason, Hi. Sounds like you have some preference corruption. This should be pretty simple to solve. You will have to give up some of your saved data in Safari, but in most cases, that is not a huge deal. I would follow these steps, which should solve it, and give you a chance to backup most of your data and restore it.
1) Open Safari and go to your preferences, take screen shots, or write down how each pane in the preferences is set.
2) Go to the File menu, and down to Export Bookmarks, chose a location to export your bookmarks to, so we can import them later.
3) Quit Safari
4) In the Finder, go to your home folder, and open your Library folder. In the Library folder is a folder called Safari, open that, and move everything in there to the trash. You may be able to omit the deletion of a file called “Form Values” which is the file that remembers your name and other form values you have filled in on websites.
5) Now, also in your Library folder, is a folder called Preferences, you will fine a file in there called com.apple.Safari.plist, delete that file as well.
6) Jut for good measure, also in your Library folder is a folder called Icons, you can safely delete anything in that folder. The data in the files in there will be recreated next time you open Safari.
With those items in the trash, open Safari and you should be back to normal.
You can now go to the File menu, and re-import your bookmarks, and also go back to your preferences, and set those how you had them in the past.
Let me know how this works out for you.
Comment by Scott Haneda 12.30.08 @ 3:25 pmYou can organize your bookmarks with Advanced URL Catalog a bookmark manager compatible with Safari.
Comment by Stuart 01.22.09 @ 3:48 amHi, I’m looking for a bookmark manager for Mac that allows to add AND to visualize comments (key words, tags) added to a url. Url Manager Pro allows adding comments, but does not display them. Ideally I’d like to see sth like in iTunes or a database with various fields, where the tags or notes are just an extra field. Do you happen to know of such a program? thanks a lot
Michael
[...] this website link can help. [...]
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Im having a big issue. My bookmarks are there. but when i go into the edit mode, to try and delete a bookmark. THE BOOKMARKS MENU IS EMPTY. Where are they? how can i get them to show up? I have every thing on “show” in the view menu. Still i cannot see my bookmarks to edit them. Only to go to them in the menu. They dont show up in edit mode. i need help.
Comment by shay 05.24.09 @ 8:11 am@Shay, are you sure you are clicked on the “Bookmarks Menu” line item in the bookmark editor? Maybe make some screenshots and upload them to http://www.imgur.com/ so we can take a look.
Comment by Scott Haneda 05.24.09 @ 2:52 pmthe first one is showing all my bookmarks. the second is when i try to edit or delete bookmarks.. the entire menu is empty but only in the edit part. i can go to my bookmarks. but cant edit them cause theyre not there.. wtf? so why is the edit bookmarks blank? …thanks..
Comment by shay 05.24.09 @ 7:39 pm@Shay, are all your items on the left blank? So your Bookmarks bar, and bookmarks history are also missing? Sounds to me like a little corruption, I would just go to the “Export Bookmarks” menu, export them all, delete them all, and then import them in clean. You will also have a backup then as well.
Comment by Scott Haneda 05.25.09 @ 2:16 pmbookmarks BAR and HISTORY are there. Only the MENU EDIT. is all missing. Maybe there is a button somewhere to get them to show? I have everything on “show bookmarks bar, menu bar, toolbar, status bar,”
i just dont understand. Everything works fine. I just cant edit my bookmarks. lol.
ok. I got it. lol. The problem was that I deleted ALL folders in Bookmarks column. If u see this image http://imgur.com/xtnqv.jpg
and the ones before.. I added a folder, with nothing in it, no webpage, nothing, and all the sudden all my bookmarks appeared. Its quite strange.. And just another bug thats in the safari 4 beta.. When is the release for the 4.0? Im still using beta, no updates on apple website either.
@Shay, nice trouble shooting. This was a hard one for me to help you with. If I can not replicate it here, then a lot of it is guesswork. You were running the Windows Safari, and I do not have access to that platform at the moment.
Glad you figured it out.
As to when the next release will be out, Apple is pretty slow on that. We have the public beta, and I believe one update was pushed out the other day, check software update.
You can get the most up to date, in that you will have a version of WebKit that is up to date for that day. Containing the code that was built out within the last 24 hours. These are called the “nightly’s”.
Remember, this is just webkit that is the up to date part. WebKit is the underlying part of Safari that does the rendering of webpages. This can be nice to have, as you gain all this great CSS support, as well as a ton of new standards and bug fixes.
What it does not give you, is a updated Safari. So if there is a bug in Safari, like what you had, or say, the download manager was busted, or anything to do with Safari, you are not going to see those things solved in the nightly releases.
Nightly releases can be downloaded from here:
http://nightly.webkit.org/
You can run them side by side with the official release of Safari. It can be fun to play with.
Following this blog: http://webkit.org/blog/ is a good idea, you can get a good feel for some of the amazing things that are happening.
For example, check this out: http://webkit.org/blog/324/css-animation-2/ which while I do not think you will see it in the Safari 4 beta you use now, if you download the nightly, you will see all the greatness that CSS animation is going to one day bring to the web.
Comment by Scott Haneda 05.26.09 @ 11:04 amMy bookmarks have been insane. I realized that my readings (1000s of ebooks) have a structured system (5 folders). You reminded me to apply a similar simplicity and extensibility to my bookmarks!
Comment by John Thomas "Kooz" Kuczmarski 06.13.09 @ 7:56 am
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