How to recover my Safari Bookmarks that was totally erased

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How to recover my Safari Bookmarks that was totally erased

I was deleting a bookmark from Safari, but by mistake I clicked "Clear All Items" and all bookmarks were deleted. I found a help in Google and read that Safari bookmarks are in the bookmarks.plist file in the following directory: Library> Safari> bookmarks.plist. I then retrieved this file through Time Machine from a previous day and replaced the actual bookmarks.plist with the oldest one and when I opened Safari all the bookmarks appeared. But now when I click on a bookmark and access a link, after that all the bookmarks disappear as if they had been deleted again.

How do I solve this?

Mac mini, macOS 10.13

Posted on Dec 31, 2020 5:57 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

dominic23

Level 10

84,018 points

Jan 1, 2021 5:39 AM in response to Sergio B Netto

Follow instructions in the article linked below.

Section: Restore your Safari bookmarks and reading list

iCloud.com > Account Settings > Advanced > Restore Bookmarks

https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/restore-contacts-calendars-reminders-mme6182cfc37/icloud

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Answer 2

John Galt

Level 10

155,756 points

Jan 1, 2021 6:43 PM in response to Sergio B Netto

Try this: restore your Bookmarks as you did previously, then before doing anything else select File > Export Bookmarks...

Safari Bookmarks will be exported as an HTML file that you can inspect and edit using any plain text editor. Examining that file might help you figure out why they're disappearing.

If everything looks ok you might as well try using File > Import From > Bookmarks HTML file and select that file.

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Answer 3

Jan 2, 2021 8:32 AM in response to John Galt

I solved the problem by exporting the bookmarks file and importing it again. Thank you very much for your help.

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Answer 4

dominic23

Level 10

84,018 points

Jan 1, 2021 7:08 AM in response to Sergio B Netto

Please Restart the Mac and try again.

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Answer 5

dominic23

Level 10

84,018 points

Jan 1, 2021 9:21 AM in response to Sergio B Netto

Does any of your iDevices show these bookmarks?

iCloud is supposed to keep bookmarks accidentally deleted for thirty days.

Do you have a recent Backup made to restore from?

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Answer 6

Jan 1, 2021 10:48 AM in response to dominic23

Yes. As I said in my first message I recovered from Time Machine the file bookmarks.plist from Safari folder inside the Library folder of the Mac and I replaced this file manually in my actual Libray folder. At first this procedure seemed to recover my bookmarks when I opened Safari. But when I choose one bookmark and access its link, all other bookmarks disappear again.

It seems that another file is missing to be replaced.

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Answer 7

Jan 1, 2021 7:05 AM in response to dominic23

I have followed the instructions in the in the article you sent me the link, I restored from a previous date but when I opened Safari again the bookmark list was still empty. What am I doing wrong?

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Answer 8

Jan 1, 2021 7:49 AM in response to dominic23

The problem is that when I click the option Restore Bookmarks in Advanced Section, the window appears empty with the message No Bookmarks Available.

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Answer 9

John Galt

Level 10

155,756 points

Jan 2, 2021 9:19 AM in response to Sergio B Netto

👍

Lucky guess on my part.

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How to recover my Safari Bookmarks that was totally erased

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