Why is there favorites and bookmarks in Safari?

If you add it to a Favorite, then it will show on a list when you open a new tab in Safari. If you save it as a bookmark, it will only show when you tap on the Bookmarks icon. It depends on how quickly you want to access a certain site. Also, if you are syncing to the Internet Explorer bookmarks on your computer, there is a specific Favorites Bar that populates the Favorites in Safari.

favorites are sites you visit frequently and are calculated by how often you visit and will change based on usage.

bookmarks are sites you added.

I always just add to both on my Mac. Apple should just combine then into one category. I can never keep which is which straight (and shouldn't have to).

This is the coolest thing ever!

I'm not sure about the operation of bookmarks on Safari, but in Internet Explorer, there is a specific category in Bookmarks called the Favorites Bar. That is what shows up when you open Safari the first time on the phone. If you sync your bookmarks from the computer to the phone, then when you tap on the bookmarks icon on the bottom of the screen, you will see your entire bookmarks list from the computer. You can select any of your bookmarks from there. You also have the option to save a particular website to the homepage of the phone. The only problem with that versus using the bookmarks is the clutter on the homepage that would result.

I wonder why I can't add any more bookmarks.....?? I had a crash so I have a new hard drive with everything new (OS X Yosemite 10.10.4) and I'm not thrilled with the changes. Why don't any of the bookmarks I've tried to add show up in the Bookmarks list?? I see this issue on older operating systems and on iPad, etc. TIA

It will only sync if you have it set to sync. That was just one of the scenarios that I described. But, I'm glad you seem to have worked it out.

This is very helpful!