Q: Safari - hundreds of duplicate bookmarks

Thanks for the shift-key tip. I tried that, but the way it works is not typical so I didn't realize how to use it. The first click brings you go the link. The second click (with shift) then highlignts everything from the selected link up (all the way to the top of the sidebar). After that you can shifft-click to fine tune your selection. Looks to me like something is broke - I would be surprised if it was meant to work that way.

Hitting delete is another problem. I tried to delete several bookmarks at once and Safari seemed to hang. After about 10-15 minutes of a frozen app, I force-quit.

I tried one and two bookmarks at a time. It takes about one minute per bookmark before it is deleted and the program becomes responsive again. There has to be a better way - at this rate it would literally take days to clear out the duplicates.

Yes, I do have iCloud enabled, as I have since iCloud began. Checking there, this mess has propogated to my iPad and iPhone.

I assume from your question that iCloud has something to do with the duplications? I see that was an issue for some with older versions. I have since turned off iCloud sync for Safari.

Is there any way to easily modify the bookmark file with a text editing program (Text Wrangler, etc.)? If I can fix the desktop bookmark file manually, how can I sync to the iOS devices without bring back all their duplicates or just having the cycle start all over again?

LInc,

I read the "Troubleshooting" link prior to posting here. Frankly, it doesn't offer much help. It certainly gives no direction on what causes the problem or how to prevent it from happening again.

The "how to fix" link seems useful. However, it is based around using the "Prariefire" program to eliminate the duplicates. I have no idea if this software will work on Safari 7 and Mavericks.

What I did stumble across is the "Export Bookmarks" itme in the File menu. This allowed me to export bookmarks to the desktop. I was able to open that file with Text Wrangler.

My situation affected several bookmark folders, where one link was duplicated several hundred to several thousand times. Using the text editor I was quickly able to delete these references. The file was easily loaded back into Safari.

I also found that I could quickly delete the affected bookmark folders in Safari. If I tried to delete items in a folder, Safari would hang. Deleting the closed folder was immediate.

Now I have my "fixed" bookmark file loaded back. I am working on getting everything re-synced.

Changes in Mavericks make some of the previous instructions obsolete. It took some doing, but I think everything is in sync now.

Of course, I still have no idea how this happened and how to prevent it from happening again.