A big thank you to Apple for wiping out nearly all my favourites in Safari as a result of upgrading to macOS 11.3. Does anyone know if they can be restored (Time Machine ?) without affecting the OS update ?
iMac Line (2012 and Later)
Restore Bookmarks from iCloud.
Restore Files contacts, calendars, bookmarks, and more using iCloud.com.
Go to iCloud.com
Click
under “Welcome “greeting and then to “Advanced” at the bottom.
Choose “Restore Bookmarks”.
Wait until it is done.
For details:
https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/restore-contacts-calendars-reminders-mme6182cfc37/icloud
If Favorites were accidentally deleted, normally Favorites will show up in iCloud.
If you have not checked this already:
Make sure Favorites are not hidden.
Safari > View > Show Favorites Bar
Safari > Sidebar
Is Favoites viewabe?
About Favorites: https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/see-your-favorite-websites-sfri22092/mac
I accidentally discovered that if you have the "Start Page" showing and you have selected "Frequently Visited" from the little menu at the bottom right-hand corner of that page AND if you move your cursor over the top right-hand area that shows only six of your "Top Sites", you will be given a "Show More" option. Click that and it will once again show the normal 24 sites that the Top Sites page has historically shown.
For the life of me, I can't figure out why they seem so intent on killing this feature of Safari, which is the only thing that makes it more attractive than other browsers as far as I am concerned.
It appears that the maximum number of entries that will now be displayed in "Top Sites" is 12. When fewer than that are showing, it seems to help to toggle "Frequently Viewed" in the little menu at the bottom of that page. It also seems that they have deleted "Top Sites" from "Add Bookmarks". Sigh.
So, last Fall, we lost the compact one-screen format for 24 top sites, which had icons large enough to notice a change to a page without opening it. We also lost the ability to rearrange the icons on the page, as well as the ability to explicitly remove icons in a clear way. (Since then, I've noticed that they occasionally disappear for no obvious reason.)
Now we seem to have lost the ability to have 24 icons and (apparently) the ability to add to the list.
This is really beginning to feel like a vendetta against long-time customers.
But this morning I find that it doesn't show all 24 of the pages when I wake up my Mac. If I stop and start Safari, it finds some of the missing ones, but still not all of them. The searching for items seems to time out very quickly. Drat!
Hello,
Thank you for your reply. I followed your instructions but all I got after clicking Restore Bookmarks was "No bookmarks to restore". I assume that means I don't need to wait for anything to happen and that upgrading to macOS 11.3 really has obliterated vital favourites. If I am wrong and there is a way to get them back, I would like to know, otherwise why has Apple done this ? In all my years of updating OS's on Windows and more recently Macs, I have never experienced a situation where user specified information has been wiped out by an update. I find this very worrying.
Yep, that's what it did yesterday (clicking 'show more' gave back the full set), alas today that doesn't work any more, I only see 10.
We went through this back when Big Sur came out late last year, and for a while it looked like Apple sorted out the problem with Top Sites. Why they're again messing with it, I've no idea, especially as, based on many of the comments here, this is (or rather, was) a really valued feature of Safari.
How Safari still has 20% browser market share is completely beyond me! Here's one user who is just about to make the jump to something else, and once I'm gone I'm gone for good. (Not that Apple cares, but still.)
Thanks for tip but Favourites were not hidden. I have also found further issues which may be related to upgrade of macOS to 11.3 and I am going to try to contact Apple technical support direct to ask why, when I connect my iPhone to my iMac to update the calendar, does Photos open and I am getting the message "The contents of the iPhone could not be read. Click Restore to restore this iPhone to factory settings". WHAT??
I could not agree with you more about a vendetta against some Apple users. In another reply I have said that apart from this issue of disappearing Favourite icons, I have found a bigger problem for me. When iTunes was dropped, Apple announced that Finder had taken over for updating certain things like Calendar. When it worked it was a breeze, and if it would not update one day then it probably would the next. When I connected my iPhone 7 after upgrading to macOS 11.3, Photos opened on my iMac. Why? I am now finding each day I connect with the intention of updating Calendar, Photos opens. When I have closed that down and actually got to the stage of 'Loading' (which used to present a string of tabs from which 'info' allowed the sync to take place), I now get "The contents of the iPhone could not be read. Click Restore to restore this iPhone to factory settings". Can someone tell me if this sounds as drastic as it does. Would I be wiping out every setting on my phone ? Is Apple trying to force people like me to use iCloud when I have no wish to ? Apple talks big about individuals privacy, so I am wondering what is going on here.
P.S. To be clear I am Quitting Photos but it still opens the next time I connect my phone to the Mac. Bizarre !
Thanks for the info but there are no Bookmarks in iCloud after checking
Where are my Safari Favourites ?
