Safari Favorites Bar Has Disappeared on iPad

After updating my iPad to IOS 11.4, the Favorites Bar has disappeared on Safari. There is just a blank horizontal space below the URL box, without any links to my favorites. When I open my Bookmarks screen, the Favorites are all still present there — but the actual Favorites Bar is empty at the top of Safari. I have tried the following: 1) checked Settings to ensure that “Show Favorites Bar” is toggled on; 2) tried toggling “Show Favorites Bar” on and off along with closing and restarting Safari; 3) turned the iPad off and restarted. None of these work. The Favorites Bar is my main workhorse for Safari and I need it back. Thanks for any suggestions.

iPad Pro Wi-Fi, iOS 11.4, Safari Favorites Bar

Posted on Jun 16, 2018 10:55 AM

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Posted on Jun 22, 2018 9:49 AM

I finally got to the bottom of this, quite accidentally. One of the websites in my Favorites list changed its url, and in the process of deleting the old bookmark and adding a new one, I noticed that there are THREE folders named Favorites in my Bookmarks folders. One of the Favorites folders was empty and the other two had different versions of my list of Favorite Bookmarks. I added a website to the empty Favorites folder and presto! - the link appeared in the Safari Favorites Bar. I then added all my other Favorites websites to what had been the blank Favorites folder and my Safari Favorites Bar is now fully populated. What I cannot do is to delete the two other Favorites folders, since these folders are locked in the edit menu. So this appears to be basically a synchronization problem, which I do not know how to fix, but at least I have a manual workaround.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 22, 2018 9:49 AM in response to marciafrombowie

I finally got to the bottom of this, quite accidentally. One of the websites in my Favorites list changed its url, and in the process of deleting the old bookmark and adding a new one, I noticed that there are THREE folders named Favorites in my Bookmarks folders. One of the Favorites folders was empty and the other two had different versions of my list of Favorite Bookmarks. I added a website to the empty Favorites folder and presto! - the link appeared in the Safari Favorites Bar. I then added all my other Favorites websites to what had been the blank Favorites folder and my Safari Favorites Bar is now fully populated. What I cannot do is to delete the two other Favorites folders, since these folders are locked in the edit menu. So this appears to be basically a synchronization problem, which I do not know how to fix, but at least I have a manual workaround.

Jun 16, 2018 11:05 AM in response to marciafrombowie

I would try one more thing before you reset all settings. Try a forced restart. To force restart your device, press and hold both the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons for at least ten seconds, until you see the Apple logo.


Resetting all Settings does not have any effect on data, but it can be a bit of a pain to enter all of the device settinsga again which includes all WiFi passwords.

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Safari Favorites Bar Has Disappeared on iPad

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