Bookmark Icons

Thanks for the input JKD032,

I hit the question mark like you said to read the description of what clearing history does and here is the answer copied and pasted:

It blows my mind that this would even be something that Apple engineers decided to do. I mean it doesnt make sense. Why remove the icon? I mean it was obviously deliberate because they put it in the description of what clearing the history does! I'm sorry im just...disappointed.

Can anybody confirm from a previous version of Safari (pre 6.0) if you go to the Reset Safari box and select the question mark if it describes it like it shows above. Thanks.

I have noticed this terrible "improvement", too. Why do the Apple Wizards find it necessary to make decisions like this? This is a bad design decision which has no merit whatsoever.

At the very least we should have the option to inhibit the clearing of the website icons.

PS: Naughty me. This will probably be deleted by the forum police 😟

mxgenius, regarding your question:

"Can anybody confirm from a previous version of Safari (pre 6.0) if you go to the Reset Safari box and select the question mark if it describes it like it shows above. Thanks."

I believe the last version of Safari before the v6.0 release was v5.1.7. It is also the "Current" version for Windows. I no longer have the v5.1.7 for the Mac as I have upgraded to ML. So what I show below is a screen shot and text copied from the v5.1.7 of the Windows version of Safari. I believe the "Options" and "Help" text were the same or similar for the Mac and Win versions of v5.1.7.

Notice the "Check Box" for "Remove all website icons." This is how it was before and is how I believe it still should be. Let the enduser/customer decide to clear the website icons or not. The "text" below is of the "Help" file associated with that check box. Clearing the "History" BEFORE would "Not" clear the website icons.

"Remove all website icons: Removes website icons, which are small graphics that help identify sites on the Internet. You see them in the Safari address field and bookmarks list, and other places. These icons are stored on your computer."

What cracks me up mxgenius is that the "Help Text" actually says "website icons, which are small graphics that help identify sites on the Internet" That is exactly my point it quickly/visually helps the enduser/customer identify sites.

Please everyone don't forget to submit your feedback to Apple - Link Below:

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

Thanks mxgenius,

JKD032

Resetting Safari only clears the data. And can accidentally erase your passwords even if you un check. If you are going to reset save everything first.

This problem is due to the fact they moved the caches and now you end up erasing all that is in the caches including any icons or preview images which did not get erased previously thus eating up unnecessary memory space. This had to be done to save loading speed. Now that is not much of an issue. But webicons are important to keep. They should be in a separate folder like they used to be.

If you clear the caches(developer button) or history(which is now both the old cache and the new history) you erase all images stored in the cache.

Yes it will rebuild if you visit the website but only that one. There was an extention which would rebuild them all without having to visit but in the new safari it does not work because there is no longer a webicon cache folder.

I tried creating one but it does not work it must have another place it stores them in temp. The icons were very important to me I have thousands of links saved and it helped me find what I needed fast. Now my bookmarks seem useless to look at because now I have to use the search with a key word hoping it will find what I need.

This is unacceptable and it is going backwards not forwards. This is not an improvement it is an obstacle which as I see has caused much grief. This kind of inoperability is retrograde in a bad way. Firefox does not seem to have these issues. Is Apple going to dump Safari? The way things are going people in droves might be the ones to dump it. I can't express my dissapointment enough....

I hope someone comes up with an extention to fix this permanently. If anyone knows a script please share....

Here's something else you can do: Go to History in the menu bar and choose Show All History. Then delete the listings using the Delete key. The history is deleted and the icons remain.

Apapane,

This is a GREAT Find! I hope Apple does not also remove or change what you have found. At least it is a good work around to what currently exists in Safari 6.

Now I just need to recondition myself on how I close out Safari so I do not accidentally clear all of the web icons.

Of course Apple should with out a doubt change it back to how it was before. That way the customer/enduser doesn't need to worry about accidentally clearing the web icons. LET THE USER DECIDE Apple!

Also for those that have the check box for "Clear history" option selected under the "Reset Safari..." make sure you uncheck it.

I haven't tested this as of yet Apapane, since your find. But "Another" reason I like to see the web icons besides making it/me more efficient is sometimes I will do a search of my bookmarks. Say for example "Yahoo" maybe I will have 25 hits on the search of my bookmarks.

(Please Note: I do not have 25 "Yahoo" bookmarks, but the word Yahoo may be contained within the bookmark/url - This is just an example)

Well the "Only View" in Safari that I am aware of is "Cover Flow" along with the list of hits.

Well "Cover Flow" is pretty useless with generic Icons.

Imagine Apple removing all of your Album Art in the iTunes Cover Flow View and the only thing you would see was a white background with black text with the album name. Fairly useless and boring. I know a lot of people do not like the cover flow view in iTunes as this was just an example.

Thanks Apapane. I would be interested in any possible negatives in this process if you can think of any.

I agree that this is annoying. I clear the cache (as advised) after doing any online banking, which is almost every day. With the previous system, the website icons were not affected.

It may seem like a small issue, but it makes it harder to find the bookmarked site you're looking for, and is a constant reminder of a 'design shortcoming' in the system - something that Apple is usually very conscientious about. Bad move Apple! 🙂

I don't know for sure if this is relative, I've tried reading through the comments but didn't seem to find my answer.

But, does anyone know if you can actually JUST use the website icon for the bookmarks toolbar?

That's what I do with Firefox, but I don't know how to do it with Safari, and I don't think I've ever had it this way.

I would like it to though. I don't like have names to clog up the toolbar, that's why I'd prefer just to have the icons as I use the bookmarks toolbar by far the most.

No you can't. This is a problem that apple created when they changed the way Safari files previews and icons are stored . There used to be a folder for webicons,previews etc. Now it is in one folder called caches. Don't bother looking for it. There is nothing to be done .

This in my opinion is a terrible screwup by apple. Safari was a superior browser still is, however the problem with webicons not being saved unless you never get rid of the history and never empty the caches, makes the browser almost useles when it comes to bookmark collections.

I can't tell you what a waste of time it is to try to find a bookmark without webicons when you have thousands of bookmarks.

There is nothing you can do to fix this problem except use Firefox instead. I suspect apple has stopped support for Safari and it looks like they do not care. I would sugest writing a complaint , but that is useless too as you can see from the lack of their input here on this knowledge base.

😟

Well, looks to me like Apple has simply been downgrading their stuff update by update. The only update I've ever found to be useful was the iPhone iOS 5.1, when they stole Android's notification center and finally allowed us to customize how we receive our notifications. I was SO sick of a huge screen popping up in the middle of my phone every time someone texted me ending whatever application I was running.

Now that I have finally been getting used to my iMac (Mid 2007), I have been bringing back my old nerdy days of doing this and that. But it's slowing me right down because since upgrading to Lion, it's like everything was drawn back quite a ways. Less customization, things were ommited or changed radically Ex: Safari and their web icons.

A person can't downgrade their devices, it's just a major pain in the butt.

I know I shouldn't be saying this on an Apple website, but these things just keep giving me reasons to go back to Android and BootCamp my computer to run windows. Granted I love my Mac far more than I ever liked my old laptop which accomplished so much.

Arrgh! I waited a good while to install Safari 6. I thought if I just wait a bit whatever is objectionable by a lot of folks will get fixed. So I waited. And then I upgraded.

Trapped.

I have some long book mark lists and just having a few familiar icons really speeds up finding things. I hate to say it, but it is starting to look like not having someone to say "No" is starting to take a toll on the quality of the output.

You can safely clear the history by selecting History->Show All History and then select everything that is displayed and manually delete all of them. Your icons will be preserved.

Bob,

I left out one pertinent detail. I'm not seeing any icons for the sites I visit. Just the blue icons. If I ever see icons again I'll be sure to try your suggestion. I've made a point of visiting sites that I know have custom icons, but nada.

This is Safari 6.01 on 10.7.5. mbp 2011.

Thanks,

Donald