How Can Bookmarks Be Replaced in iCloud?

Bruno, I was intrigued by your problem, so I thought I'd try some experimenting. After backing-up my Mac and iPad, I did the following to replace my iPad's bookmarks with my Mac's bookmarks:

1. On the Mac, I set Preferences > iCloud > Bookmarks to Checked then deleted the bookmarks from Safari. Then I Unchecked Bookmarks in Preferences (see 4.)
2. To clear the old bookmarks from the iPad, I set Settings > iCloud > Bookmarks to Off: a message appeared saying Turn off Bookmarks so I clicked Delete from my iPad option.
3. Next, I imported some bookmarks and arranged them in Mac's Safari.
4. To move the bookmarks to the iPad:
   • on the Mac I set Preferences > iCloud > Bookmarks to Checked: the Mac reported that the bookmarks would be merged with the (non-existent) bookmarks on iCloud, so I clicked Merge;
   • on the iPad, I set Settings > iCloud > Bookmarks to On

I tried this process serveral times and it not only makes sense, it works! (It's also essentially the same as LaurenceVF's solution of Feb 18 2012, but I added step 1 to avoid duplicates. It may be unnecessary. I'll try to find time to see whether it can be omitted.)

I have no connection with Apple at all, beyond that of a happy customer, so I'm not some sort of shill. I do occasionally have problems, but I usually find they're caused by rushing things.

If you're still having problems then let me know precisely what you're doing and I'll try to answer.

P.S. I've restored my Mac bookmarks from the backup and to my iPad with this method, so these steps work even with thousands of bookmarks! I should also mention that this is all done with a wireless network and no cables.

Hey guys, had the same problems and tried various suggestions on this and other sites. Then I went to the settings on my Mac and then iCloud, unchecked the bookmarks and thereafter checked it again. My Mac then asked if I'd like to merge the Mac and the iCloud bookmarks. I clicked on yes and after that it worked beautifully again. Hope this helps you too.

The only way I got my contacts, Mail, bookmarks to transfer is to turn off iCloud on both devices, uncheck the iCloud files (mail, contact, bookmarks, etc) on my New iPad. Hook up to iTunes and manually transfer (just like the old iPod days) all my files, bookmarks, contacts, etc. Then go back in and turn on iCloud on both devices and then re-check (turn on) the items you want to sync. Until Apple gets their colon in gear to get iCloud working better, I WILL not pay extra for more storage in June when my original mac.com sync account goes away. I frankly don't see where iCloud is an advantage to the user. I am afraid that if you do something stupid up in iCloud and your computer syncs with it that you can completely loose data accidentally. There has to be a better way to sync (and a safer way) between your devices. For right now I am content to transfer data manually when I need to so that I don't overwrite something that is important and is lost forever.

I spake to soon. I did get my bookmarks to move, but no contacts, no notes, no calendar. I am getting pushed mail over and over again so I turned off the mail. In fact, I'm turning off everything and going without iCloud. I'm afraid that iClound is a joke of large proportions.

Hi

Thanks for good answers, but it did not work good for me until I did..

First my set up: 1 MB pro, 1 MB air, 1 iPHone 4S.

First I did as suggestet above: turn off syncing on all my devices, arrange alle my bookmarks on the MB pro, turned on syncing and delete the duplicated bookmarksbar folders. But when I turned on syncing on my MB Air it all got f... up again, and deleting the duplcated bookmarksbar and bookmarks-menu just made it all a mess.

I solved it by turning off the sync on the Air, rearrange my bookmarks on the MB and then turned on sync on the phone. It worked, and then I dropped the Safari folder in my Airs Library (~User/Library/Safari), startet Safari on the Air and turned on the sync on my Air.

Now it works as it should be. Seems like there are som caching which will not get deleted before the folders are deleted. Tried to just reset my browser and delete my bookmarks, but it didn't work.

There should an iCloud preferense panel on the web.

Nothing worked for me, iCloud refused to give up its version of bookmarks.

What worked for me:

Found the correct Bookmarks.plist on my backup on the time machine, copy to somewhere safe

Set all devices Preferences > iCloud > Bookmarks to Unchecked

Manually deleted all bookmarks from all devices

Selected my iMac as the main device and changed to Preferences > iCloud > Bookmarks to Checked (Do you want to synch..Yes... and the iCould bookmarks came back, really stubbornly)

Opened ~/Library/Safari/ in Finder to watch

Opened the safe Bookmarks.plist with Textwrangler, selected all and pressed copy

Opened the live Bookmarks.plist (~/Library/Safari/...) and with Textwrangler, selected all and pressed paste

For a while someting is going in the Finder, I watched until finished

Set all devices Preferences > iCloud > Bookmarks back to Checked

Finished.

In spite of clouds, I always keep a backup of what I don't want to lose. Inside clouds you don't see much and get a rocky ride, check next time you're fliying :-)

Thanks I had the same problem you helped me fix it. You actually don't need a third party app to make the Library folder visible. In the Finder menu press 'go' and when the menu drops down, just press the option key and 'Library' will appear in the list between Home and Computer.

Thanx man, I tried every fix on this thread, yours is the one that worked for me!

I had the same problem...IOS devices bookmarks were all in sync but my iMac was not. All on the same Apple ID. I had tried turning iCloud syncing off and on, but it didn't work. What worked for me was logging on to iCloud.com and on my iMac and suddenly my iMac bokmarks were in sync with all the devices.

What I don't know is how long it will last.

Hello everyone,

I have read all posts here and other forums, and have tried many of your suggestions - for windows 7 - but: I know that more than 500 bookmarks will appear wrong on an iphone5/ipad. So mine were like 9000, the same in win 7 laptop firefox and chrome. Synch worked fine with Firefox, but in December, instead, it started to merge icloud with fx bookmarks and now I have more than 29,000. I turned off synch everywhere, fixed firefox bookmarks, saved file as html, uploaded to Dropbox. Erased all bookmarks in laptop browsers, synched w icloud, all bookmarks in iphone were gone; loaded my fixed html bookmark file again to firefox, backed up iphone to laptop w/ itunes and icloud, and again, it froze my safari in iphone and tons of bookmarks appeared again. I did something wrong for sure... SO:

1. I urgently need to delete bookmarks from icloud and have only my fixed html file as iphone bookmarks either loading it from firefox, chrome, safari or IE...

2. Besides, I want to turn off logging "shared links" both in iphone6 and ipad air...

So far, both things are impossible. Now I have to open Dropbox every time, and click my links from there... Tried to upload my html file to pages in icloud but it wouldn't let me. Is there an app for editing html files for iphone and saving those files? I cannot copy and paste in Notes, also tried w/ Evernote, file is too large... Has anyone tried turning file into pdf and accessing bookmarks from saved pdf in ibooks? Any suggestions for a windows user will be appreciated. Thanks!