Q: How Can Bookmarks Be Replaced in iCloud?

Yeap, iCloud Mail is having a fart time again as of 11/11/11 4:36pm EST! It's NOT WORKING!!!!! APPLE WHAT'S GOING ON? Time to move to Windows???

I had problems syncing bookmarks on an IMac, a MBP an iPhone 4 and an iPad 1.

After reading all the good hints I gave it a thought an honestly fixed it in 5 minutes so far.

Make sure you have latest OSX and iOS software on your devices.

I switched of sync on the MBP and cleaned the bookmarks. After that I disables sync on the iPhone and iPad and agreed to delete all bookmarks when I was asked. I checked on the devices in Safari whether all bookmarks were deleted and found a few being still there which I manually deleted.

Then I deleted ALL bookmarks on the iMac and waited until it has synced to iCloud. after that I disabled syncing on the iMAC.

On the MBP with the cleaned bookmarks I enabled syncing again and agreed to merge these bookmarks in iCloud which was flushed by the iMac.

After the MBP had uploaded I enabled syncing on all devices and now all devices show the same bookmarks.

Deleted and added some and all devices still are up-to-date.

Hope this helps someone

this worked perfectly for me;

thanks

Done that and tried that gosh so many times and so many hours wasted to no avail! Now after a week of things working "OK" early this afternoon I added a bookmark in a folder I have called Professional Development in my iPhone 4... well, it's been over 2 hours and the new bookmark has yet to show up in my iPad 2, MBP, and iMAC!!! What's worse, now my Notes on my iPad2 are showing 3 times duplicates! However, Notes so far are OK in my iPhone 4, MBP, and iMac. I'm so, so tired of cleaning this stuff. If I leave everything alone... it seems OK but the moment I add a bookmark or a Note things do not sync or get several times dups. This iCloud thing has been one total flop and an endless frutration! Everything else from iCloud seems to work except Bookmarks and Notes!

For me the decribed procedure worked and still all devices sync perfectly.

Have you really made sure to erase the bookmarks in the iCloud. In several discussions I found out that most people have not done this properly and as long as the iCloud contents (bookmarks) is not deleted completely and filled again from scratch iCloud does not work properly.

Also remember that it sometimes take some time to update the iCloud so give it enough time to delete itself. You can easily check this with the device you use to delete it.

Delete the bookmarks when syncing is off. Then turn on sync again. Wait some minutes. Turn syncing off again and then on again. When the bookmarks do not appear again after a couple of minutes after you started safari, then the iCloud bookmarks have been deleted.

Then repopulate them as described.

I hope that this is not a matter of time as I solved it yesterday so that it will not appear in a weeks time or so again.

As said, since yesterday syncing of all devices works perfect and I tested it a lot

Done that and still DOES NOT work for me! I wiped out my bookmarks in ALL my devices (iPhone 4, iPad 2, MBP, and iMac). Of course, I made backups of my bookmars prior of wiping it out and proceeded to wait 4 days to make sure iCloud had enough time to clear itself up alright. After seeing that I didn't get no more entries synched to any of my devices I proceeded to restore my bookmarks first to my iMac. Then I waited and yes, a few minutes later it synch correctly into my MBP however, when it came to my iOS devices it came over alright except it came over with dupplicates AGAIN!!!! So, at this point I just went and clean up all those entries from my iPhone and iPad. Luckily they stayed like that and no further dupplicates were created.

Now, because I don't feel iCloud is working correctly, at least for me, with my Safari Bookmarks and Notes, I have left those two apps untoched. But this week I added a new bookmark into a folder from my iPhone 4... well, guess what? The new bookmark after 3 days NEVER showed up in my other devices! Once again, I proceeded to remove that entry from my iPhone 4 and added it from my iPad 2... SAME results. Ok... the frustration continues... I removed the bookmark from my iPad and added it from my iMac and guess what happen next? The new bookmark showed up in my MBP!!!! It didn't show up in the same location as I placed it from my iMac. It showed up at the root top level of my bookmarks... so, a la Microsoft, I proceeded to move it to its appropriate folder as I have it in my iMac. So far, so good. Then I proceeded to check my iPad and iPhone and the new bookmark is NOWHERE to be found!!! Isn't this wonderful how iCloud works!??? I love the fact that it frustrates me and create unncessary work and waste of time and lack of efficiency and effectiveness!

Yesterday I added a new note from my iPhone and guess what happened... the new note never showed up in ANY of my other devices!!!! So, once again, I proceeded to remove that new note and add it from my iPad. A few minutes later... I had multiple duplicates of Notes in my iPad and the new note was nowhere to be found in any of my other devices inspite of the fact I have full iCloud features enabled! So, I then proceeded to clean up the extra duplicate entries from my iPad... and what happened next was just so kewl... ALL, I mean ALL my notes I had in my other devices were WIPED OUT!!!! But now things looks clean and tidy from my iPad!!! Go figure! I waited to see if they will sync to my other devices and NOTHING!

At this point I was so fuming you could fry an egg on my forehead of the frustration! So, I proceeded to wipe--out my notes from my iPad and waited to make sure no more duplcates were going to show-up. I then went to my iMac and from there launched TimeMachine and restore my notes and then created the new note and wala... now it shows OK in ALL my devices! So, the morale of the story for me is... don't enter Bookmarks from my iOS devices. Do it from my Mac machines... at least they'll be (after manually moving the entry from the other machine) in sync and do not add any new notes from any iOS device but to it from my iMac or MBP so that it syncs OK...

Isn't this a wonderful story of how great and amazing iCloud works? Wow... I'm even impress with myself... but I've been close in more than once occassion of using a baseball bat and my devices as a Piñata from the frustration

I don't want to sync Bookmarks because many of my MBP Bookmarks duplicate the functions of Apps on my IOS devices.  But I would sure like to sync Reading List.  I think it needs its own separate sync option.

I agree! I hope Apple is reading this posts to take notice and fix what's broken and add useful features like the one you mentioned.

Good points.  Your methods seemed good and I was quite hopeful they would work, especially since this thread is being passed around on multiple other forums as a solution, but so far I can't make it work for me.  The iCloud bookmarks stubbornly remain.  The worst of it is even though I have access to the iCloud/iDisk from another machine running SnowLeopard, I can't sync to the iDisk/iCloud as I used to because of the "upgrade".   This is highly annoying.

No wonder it's free; "iCloud" does not work as advertised.

I don't know how that happened to me, but after logging in to iCloud On my Mac's system prefs, my bookmarks bar restored bookmarks I used to have a couple of weeks ago, all new bookmarks I added since then are gone. I'm wondering if iCloud presumes by default to take the version of the bookmarks on iPhone whatever the Mac's Safari bookmarks were, and that's what I had on my iPhone I guess. while it should merge both sources into one list of bookmarks, just like syncing the addressbook.

Unfortunately, I removed both User Library and main Library from backup on Time Machine to save some space of the backup disk, therefore, I don't have any copy of my bookmarks.plist file.

Is there any chance to recover my bookmakrs to yesterday's version?

There is a slip-up in these instructions that will prevent them from working. This is almost certainly why EliNOVA and others have been having problems with them (e.g. "I tried that and still it does not work for me.")

The problem is that Jim Scott has consistently referred to the folder:

     Users > (home folder) > Safari

instead of the correct folder called

     Users > (home folder) > Library > Safari

For example, Step 4 says:

     4)  .. so that I could make a copy of the Users > (home folder) > Safari folder.

when it should read:

     4) .. so that I could make a copy of the Users > (home folder) > Library > Safari folder.

Similarly:

     7)    .. [I].. copied the saved "good" copy of my "correct" Safari user folder on the desktop and

          chose to have it replace the Users > (home folder) > Safari folder.

should read

     7)    .. [I].. copied the saved "good" copy of my "correct" Safari user folder on the desktop and

          chose to have it replace the Users > (home folder) > Library > Safari folder.

One final point. It's not true that "a third-party utility such as TinkerTool is needed in order to unhide the hidden Library folder in the user's home folder," if you're prepared to use Terminal program.

Furthermore, there really isn't any need to permanently show the user's Library folder. If you only want to access the information in the Users > (home folder) > Library > Safari folder, you can do this more easily by (say) clicking on the desktop (to make the Finder active), then holding down the "option" key while selecting the Library item in the Finder's Go menu. This will open a new window containing the content's of the user's hidden Library folder, including their Safari folder: the entire Safari folder can be moved to the desktop from this window by simply dragging the Safari icon. So Step 4 could be replaced with

    4)       Open the User's Library folder by selecting the Finder, pressing the "option"

               key and choosing Go --> Library menu item. A window containing the user's Library

               will appear: drag the Safari folder to the desktop.

               ..

     7)       Back on the iMac, select the Go --> Library menu item (as in Step 4). Next select

               the "good" copy of the Safari folder that's on the Desktop (from Step 4) and drag it

               into the Library window: if prompted with "An item named 'Safari' already exists.."

               then select "Replace"

I think these instructions could be streamlined a bit more, but I'm a bit busy with Christmas coming up to try today.

Scott, while I agree that Apple haven't made this process as simple as it could be, I think you're being a bit hard on them. If you dig deeper into OS X you'll find that third party software is very rarely, if ever, needed to maintain a Mac.  In fact, with a little more effort, this whole process could be written as an Automator script, which you could name something like Replace_iCloud_Bookmarks. Then, whenever you wanted to replace the iCloud bookmarks with the bookmarks on your iMac, you could simply double-click the icon for Replace_iCloud_Bookmark and wait for it to finish running.

That's the beauty of wrapping up solutions as scripts. It may take a little bit longer to write an Automator script than it does to do the steps, although with practice not much longer, but you only ever need to work out the steps once!

I finally figured it out.  Here is what worked for me.

On all devices, turn off Safari bookmarks and delete from device.

Arrange your bookmarks as you would like them.

Move the entire Safari folder out of the Users>Library>Safari location to the Desktop, as suggested earlier. Quit Safari.

Relaunch Safari.  Manually delete all default bookmarks that appear when the application completes rebuilding the Library folder.

Quit Safari again.

Launch System Preferences and navigate to iCloud. 

Uncheck Safari Bookmarks.

Sign out of iCloud.  When prompted make sure to save your contacts.

Sign back into iCloud.  (Username@mac.com)  Allow iCloud to use your current location.

iCloud will run through the 'setup' process again and by default will check boxes for Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, Documents, Find My Mac.

Relaunch Safari. 

Go back to System Preferences and uncheck the Safari Bookmark box.

Recheck the box, and merge bookmarks.  Your old pesky bookmarks will reappear.  Manually delete them using Command>A to help speed things up.  Delete every single bookmark, folder, anything that can be deleted, delete it.

Choose a device, and on that device in System Prefs turn back on Safari bookmarks.  You should see nothing. Blank.

Quit Safari on your desktop Mac.

Open a Finder window and drag the previously saved Safari folder back from the Desktop to the Users>Library>Safari location.

Relaunch Safari.  All of your preferred bookmarks will appear as they should.

Go to a device and open Bookmarks in Safari.  You will see the progress spinner turn for a few moments, and then your new bookmarks will appear.

-Mark

Here's how I solved the problem.

First, I synced all bookmarks on all three of my devices: iphone, ipad & imac.

Then I turned Bookmarks off in Settings on the iphone & ipad, choosing "delete bookmarks on this device" when presented with the dialogue box. On each device, I made sure that Safari was no longer in the tray, by X'ing it out. (Actually, I don't think this is really necessary, but I was just making sure.)

Going to my imac, i reorganized my bookmarks in the sequence I wanted, deleting duplicate folders & bookmarks. Sometimes this was easy, since the folders were identical duplicates - i.e., the contents were the same. Other times, I had to compare the contents, which wasn't easy since there doesn't seem to be any way to order the contents of a Bookmark folder by name.

Once I got my imac bookmarks into shape, I synced them again. I waited a few minutes, then turned on the ipad & turned Bookmarks on. Voila! my ipad bookmarks were now the same ones as on my imac. So I did the same thing with my iphone.

I'll tell you, though, I sure could use some kind of app to edit my bookmarks - mainly to sort them without having to hold & drag...

Hello,

I too realized my devices were all out of sync. I read your posts and sighed however, I tried edited the bookmarks in the way I wanted on my iMac (Lion), then on my iphone 4S, I went in SETTINGS, ICLOUD, and turned off Bookmarks and agreed to delete all bookmarks on my iphone. I then turned them on again and to my delighted surprize, my iMac bookmarks sync'd in a few minutes. I hope this helps some of you out.

Still nothing. My new iPad syncs everything except bookmarks. I'm forced to use a naked, no-bookmark safari browser on the iPad, which is VERY frustrating.

Apple should fix this ASAP, we pay too much for their hardware to still put up with this kind of stupid stuff.

EDIT: I actually made the effort to import all the chrome bookmarks into safari on my Mac Pro, even though all these modern devices SHOULD be integrated with ALL browsers, not just Apple's proprietary. They're becoming the new Microsoft! And after all the hours spent trying this, I STILL don't have bookmarks on the iPad, which makes it practically useless for web surfing, and a waste of my money.