what happened to the "top sites" feature in Safari 14?

Just got off of the phone with Apple Support. The rep I spoke with had to do some digging around. The customer service reps were not informed of the change. But, yes, as of last night's update, Top Sites is confirmed removed.

He registered my phone call as a complaint. He also recommended that anyone wishing to give feedback go to: Feedback.apple.com and do so.

The what, why, will it be brought back, or will there be something better in its place, is unknown, at this time.

In case this hasn't been posted before:

Installing Safari 14 removed the Top Sites, but the URLs of the top sites are still available in ~/Library/Safari/TopSites.plist

You can open it in Xcode, or even in TextEdit and copy out the URLs, open each site and copy it to the Favorites bar.

The site will then appear on the Start Page as a Favicon or (more often) a letter. You can drag the icon where you need it in the list. If you want to rename the site, you need to do that on the Favorites bar. Ugly but it works.

You can still back up the .plist file that contains all your TopSite bookmarks. Go to your user account's Library folder: Mac HD -> Users -> USERNAME -> Library -> Safari. Find the "TopSites.plist" file and make a copy on your desktop.

You can open that file with TextEdit and you'll see each of the TopSite bookmarks you had in Safari 13. I haven't found a way to bring TopSites back but at least you're not completely SOL.

If you don't see your Library folder follow these instructions:

https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/reveal-library-folder-in-macos/

I don't know if someone has posted this previously ---- but I would be surprised if no-one has.

1. create a favorite with your top sites
2. In Safari preferences general tab chose new tabs open with start page
3. In Favorites Shows chose "top sites"

Open a start page, right click, chose show favorites.

I miss Top Sites as well. I have just created a new folder on my MacBook Pro called, you guessed it, “Top Sites” which now appears on my Favourites Bar. I don’t recall all the websites of the 30 I saved on the Top Sites page, but am adding them to the folder as I use them. The folder is the first on the Favourites Bar, and has a drop-down menu showing the websites I add. The advantage of this is that the new Top Sites folder also appears on my iPad & iPhone, so I can easily access my Top Sites from any device.

Yep. Frequently Visited is now Top Sites. mine has all the top sites I had before the 'downgrade' and I can add to them but can't rearrange the sequence they're displayed in.

so, this is an improvement, although not back to the original.

At least they listened!

Looks like they removed that in favor of a customized start page. I wish they would have called it out or left it in as an option.

just read this post and update my mac

safari now = 14.0.1

macos = 1-.14.6

confirmed that top site are now back !

really disappointed in apple for removing top sites. the kicker is that if you hold the + sign on left side of browser address bar (where you would add sites to reading list etc), the option to add to "top sites" still comes up in the dropdown, sort of like a taunt...

hello, so when you put arrow over little plus sign and hold down, the drop down comes up and I have circled the option to add to top sites and drawn an arrow pointing to it. so even though the feature is gone, it is still listed as an option, which makes the whole thing even more irritating

fabrice177 Said:

“what happened to the "top sites" feature in Safari 14? My favorite sites on the "Top Sites" opening page seems to have disappear when opening the freshly downloaded Safari 14. Are they lost?”

———-

To All Readers:

Do your Part Recommend this to Apple:

1. Go Here: Feedback - Safari - Apple
2. Select: “Enhancement Request” for the “Feedback Type”
3. Proceed from there as necessary

Apple won’t get back to you directly, but the more feedback they receive on this, the more they will know what their customers prefer, and maybe include it in updates to come.

I encourage everyone who wants "Top Sites" back to do what this poster suggested.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251802058?answerId=253480351022#253480351022

Share this with everyone else. We need to get this resolved ASAP!

Thanks 🙏

The issue here is the TOP SITE page not the START PAGES, you are in the wrong room.

The problem is on TOP SITES page, which was removed w/o previous anouncement....and I lost all my day by day connections.

Apple may read these comments, but they are not acknowledging them.

IMPORTANT:

Please provide FEEDBACK to:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/safari.html