Apple Ending Support for Safari Bookmark Syncing on iOS 10 and Earlier

[MacRumors]

In a support document published this week, Apple said it will be dropping support for Safari bookmark syncing on iPhones and iPads running iOS 10 or earlier, and on Macs running macOS Sierra 10.12.5 or earlier, starting December 18. Apple said it made this decision in accordance with its minimum software requirements for iCloud.

Apple said Safari bookmarks on devices running those older iOS and macOS versions will no longer be synced to other devices or uploaded to iCloud.com:

You won't lose any bookmarks already on your devices and you'll still be able to create new bookmarks on those devices. However, new bookmarks won't sync across devices with iOS 10 or earlier and macOS Sierra 10.12.5 or earlier. They also won't be recoverable on iCloud.com.

Apple said users will need to update their devices to iOS 11 or macOS Sierra 10.12.6 or newer to continue syncing their Safari bookmarks with the newer iCloud Bookmarks system, with steps for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and PC users outlined in Apple's support document. If you cannot or do not want to update your device, you can copy or export your bookmarks, with the support document outlining steps for that option as well.

If your devices are already running iOS 11 or later or macOS Sierra 10.12.6 or later, no action is required, according to Apple.

As we previously reported, Apple also announced that iCloud device backups for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch will require iOS 9 or later starting December 18. As outlined in another support document, users will need to update their devices to iOS 9 or later or manually back up the device to a Mac or PC. After the deadline, Apple said any data backed up to iCloud from devices that have not been updated to iOS 9 will be deleted.

Article Link: Apple Ending Support for Safari Bookmark Syncing on iOS 10 and Earlier

 

[Scoot65]

Phew, just sneaked in as I'm running macOS Sierra 10.12.6 on my MBP mid 2012 13"

 

[adrianlondon]

Thanks for the warning.

I've just booted up my first-gen iPad mini (iOS 9) so it can sync everything possible before it gets cut off. I'm surprised it's lasted so well, to be fair.

 

[winxmac]

Is there someone still using macOS 10.12.5 when macOS 10.12.6 was already released 7 years ago? macOS 15.1 is already released and will be updated to macOS 15.2 next month...

iOS 10 is the last update for iPhone 5 and 5c and iPad 4 but there could be others like me that stay on older versions for the performance...

 

[Slix]

It's been a while since I checked, but I thought my devices on iOS 9 and macOS 10.11 were already not syncing bookmarks in Safari? Maybe I'm mistaken, but either way, I guess they won't soon.

 

[Permanent Sigh]

Would be nice if most-visited pages appearing as “suggestions” would actually sync across current devices with the current OS (this has been an issue for a few years now)

 

[PsykX]

Is there someone still using macOS 10.12.5 when macOS 10.12.6 was already released 7 years ago? macOS 15.1 is already released and will be updated to macOS 15.2 next month...

iOS 10 is the last update for iPhone 5 and 5c and iPad 4 but there could be others like me that stay on older versions for the performance...

Yeah, it's not a big deal.

The oldest supported iPhone is iPhone 5, which I bought 12 years ago now.
I mean, if you have one, it was a good phone, but maybe it's time to upgrade (or maybe you don't even care about bookmarks syncing). If you don't have money, the used market is also there for you.

 

[orbital~debris]

I hope this is being done to improve reliability of the syncing. It's truly one of the only places in the entire iCloud infrastructure that I can 'feel' a creaky system behind it: for example, Safari will often show a warning about being unable to deal with changes to bookmarks because syncing is in progress…

 

[scrapesleon]

Apple trying to force people to upgrade all in the name of more money

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Is there someone still using macOS 10.12.5 when macOS 10.12.6 was already released 7 years ago? macOS 15.1 is already released and will be updated to macOS 15.2 next month...

iOS 10 is the last update for iPhone 5 and 5c and iPad 4 but there could be others like me that stay on older versions for the performance...

It could be as simple as 10.12.6 has a newer security cert than 10.12.5.

 

[adrianlondon]

It's been a while since I checked, but I thought my devices on iOS 9 and macOS 10.11 were already not syncing bookmarks in Safari? Maybe I'm mistaken, but either way, I guess they won't soon.

I wonder if they sync with each other - in other words, two iOS 9 devices would sync.

My bookmarks on my iPhone 11 running iOS 18.2 aren't syncing to my antique iPad (they do sync to/from my Macbook).

 

[slammer0]

I hope this is being done to improve reliability of the syncing. It's truly one of the only places in the entire iCloud infrastructure that I can 'feel' a creaky system behind it: for example, Safari will often show a warning about being unable to deal with changes to bookmarks because syncing is in progress…

That's nice. I never hot that warning. For me it was just not syncing bookmarks or open tabs or the deleted bookmarks would show up again. After years of issues, this year I stopped using iCloud for bookmarks completely as it was extremely unreliable. I always had newest stable OS on all devices with all the latest bugs it seems.

 

[DailySlow]

Yeah, it's not a big deal.

The oldest supported iPhone is iPhone 5, which I bought 12 years ago now.
I mean, if you have one, it was a good phone, but maybe it's time to upgrade (or maybe you don't even care about bookmarks syncing). If you don't have money, the used market is also there for you.

I keep my iPhone 5SE 1st Gen (iOS 15) updated but without cellular after migrating to a newer phone - so it's wifi only obviously - much of its software/apps including iCloud run ok and mail etc. sync when I fire it up. Why keep it? Well it WILL work wifi if my newer phone is lost or misplaced. Also IF my current phone goes missing like stolen etc. it's easy for me to kill it and take the 5SE into my carrier's storefront and hook it up at least for urgent temp. I will keep it until it has no more updates and/or iCloud syncing. Then I will keep it for a prop if needed in a video - a living fossil.

 

[wanha]

The accelerating pace of technological progress means that we are all destined to be tech newbies forever.

Whatever you know will turn obsolete at an ever increasing rate and we'll all be in the same boat just trying to keep up.

Welcome to the new norm.

 

[MrGimper]

I gave up with any kind of bookmark syncing and just use raindrop.io now across all browsers. Deffo worth a look. Not affiliated.

 

[Pedro_UKinternational]

My daughters iPad stopped at iOS12 a few years ago. I had to get her a new iPad due to apps not working - including Apple apps (yes I did a full frssh install to try and fix any issues). I'm surprised anything is working on iOS10.

 

[Skyscraperfan]

That is just an evil move with no real technical reason. Bookmarks are basically just lists of links with titles, dates and descriptions. How can something simple like that ever become incompatible?

 

[victorvictoria]

Quit whining and upgrade already. It's been 7 years (2017) since iOS 10 was supplanted by iOS 11. Mac OS 11 was released in 2020. I don't defend all of Apple's moves, but this one is justified. And if it's important to you to have Safari sync across your devices, it's also important to keep them up to date to mitigate the security risks posed by running out of date systems.

 

[AppleTO]

I’m surprised you can even still sign into iCloud on these old iOS versions.

 

[NMBob]

Huh! Who knew there had been so much technical progress in bookmark technology to make synching old bookmarks obsolete.

 

[tonywalker23]

Maybe this will help my devices (all up to date) keep their Reading List in sync.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

macOS versions are... kind of a mess.

They have their own totally unforced error from when they decided the next version after (10.)15 was 11, making it hard to realize that (10.)12 is over 8 years old now, when it only feels 3 years old.

It's interesting that Apple supports their hardware for long, but "major" releases of macOS only get support for 2-3 years. I wouldn't feel comfortable as a business using an OS with so little API stability. Although Windows seems to throw everything out with each major release, at least the major releases get free support for 10-11 years (and longer paid). RedHat probably has the best API stability of any OS, and they similarly offer free support for ~10 years and another 3-5 years beyond that for paid.

And updates from everyone just strike me as taking an absurdly long time to install. What the heck is going on during that? Are they building the entire OS from source code? I've gotten used to updating the base image for linux in a docker container where it takes well under 5 minutes... IDK why it should take significantly longer to do any other OS update. Probably because everyone insists on including a ton of applications and stuff that really should be installed separately and not be part of the OS. Let me start using my computer after 5 minutes and it's okay to spend the next 50 minutes installing all the bizarre apps (Freeform? Has anyone ever touched this?) in the background.

 

[BabaBooey24]

On a somewhat related note, can somebody please help me understand why we cannot rearrange our bookmarks more easily or even better, list them alphabetically? I'm specifically referring to iPad or iPhone iOS.

 

[JosephAW]

Apple is swinging the ax lately, I’m waiting for the last shoe to drop and that is iMessage support requires iOS 15 or greater.

 

[TruthAboveAllElse]

I wonder if they sync with each other - in other words, two iOS 9 devices would sync.

My bookmarks on my iPhone 11 running iOS 18.2 aren't syncing to my antique iPad (they do sync to/from my Macbook).

No they won’t. The syncing functions through iCloud, which is dropping support, so they won’t sync bookmarks at all. (Except to a Mac over a cable.)