How do I turn off Safari auto-import?

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How do I turn off Safari auto-import?

So, I installed Google Chrome to use for a while. Next time I open Safari it asks if I want to keep the bookmarks and history that it has imported from Google Chrome. I say not to, because I had just imported all of Safari's stuff into Chrome, thus they were nearly identical.

Now, Safari doesn't allow me to do *anything* at all with Bookmarks, I cannot erase my history, it continuously pops up a box saying that the item was imported from Google Chrome and that I need to decide if I want to keep or not keep it. I click don't keep, it doesn't delete, alter, or otherwise change what I've asked it to change. I click on keep, same thing.

I have entirely removed Google Chrome, all of its preferences, temporary files, and everything else I can find from the system, yet Safari is still convinced that Google Chrome is on the system and that I can't edit anything because it was "imported" from Google Chrome. The only way I can edit bookmarks now is from my iPad or iPhone.

I have no idea how to fix this, anyone else have this issue?

Can't I just turn auto-import OFF?

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.14

Posted on May 18, 2019 9:11 PM

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TitanShadow Author

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16 points

May 18, 2019 10:28 PM in response to TitanShadow

So, just so everyone knows the answer to this problem (though I may be the only one who had it). I had to go into the correct directory and tinker with the settings via the default command.

I had to drop to the Terminal and go into this directory:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Preferences

Once there, I found some interesting settings, this is the subset that interested me.

defaults read -app safari|grep -i test
    DidMigrateStartPageDefaultSidebarVisibility = 1;
    TestDriveOriginBrowser = 1;
    TestDriveStartDate = "2019-05-19 02:23:51 +0000";
    TestDriveState = 2;
    TestDriveUserDecision = 1;

Now, the text on the dialog reads as if I'm taking Safari for a test drive, so I changed 3 of these settings with Safari not running:

defaults write -app safari TestDriveOriginBrowser 0
defaults write -app safari TestDriveState 0
defaults write -app safari TestDriveUserDecision 0

Now, when I fired Safari back up, I also noticed that the option to keep or not keep the Chrome data was still there. When I clicked the button to not keep the imported data, everything returned to normal.

I will fully admit that I tinkered with a lot of stuff to get so if this doesn't work for you, I highly recommend exploring the settings via the command

defaults read -app safari

This seems to be somewhat directory dependent, and to make it work, one has to go in and grant Terminal full disk access in privacy settings.

On a personal note, I don't mind so much a lot of the things that Apple does to kind of out-think what I'm going to do, there are a lot of things that still "just work". However, not giving users the option to turn off automated import or to reset applications is still a big kicker for me. This entire experience has made me want to use Safari even less. I was just trying out Chrome, but having to fight to make Safari work the way it has for years, meh.

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How do I turn off Safari auto-import?

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