Safari 26 Sidebar under Sequoia

[mickklass]

I installed Safari 26 in my MBP M4 Max running Sequoia 15.7. The sidebar containing bookmarks now shows a large icon, URL and 2 line description, taking up far more room and making a one screen list now take up multiple pages. See the attached screenshot.

Is there a way to return this to the older, more compact style or pre-Safari 26, or customize this to reduce the clutter?

 

[macOScurious]

I installed Safari 26 in my MBP M4 Max running Sequoia 15.7. The sidebar containing bookmarks now shows a large icon, URL and 2 line description, taking up far more room and making a one screen list now take up multiple pages. See the attached screenshot.

Is there a way to return this to the older, more compact style or pre-Safari 26, or customize this to reduce the clutter?

Check if you find an update for Safari. There should be one - Safari 26.0.1
This may or may not fix your problem. Give it a try.

 

[bluespark]

I installed Safari 26 in my MBP M4 Max running Sequoia 15.7. The sidebar containing bookmarks now shows a large icon, URL and 2 line description, taking up far more room and making a one screen list now take up multiple pages. See the attached screenshot.

Is there a way to return this to the older, more compact style or pre-Safari 26, or customize this to reduce the clutter?

Yes -- click on the hamburger menu (3 dots) next to the Bookmarks heading in the sidebar. Choose "Compact." It still doesn't work as well as before, but at least that one thing is adjustable.

 

[KALLT]

Yes -- click on the hamburger menu (3 dots) next to the Bookmarks heading in the sidebar. Choose "Compact." It still doesn't work as well as before, but at least that one thing is adjustable.

I am not seeing that hamburger menu. Can you show a screenshot?

 

[bluespark]

I am not seeing that hamburger menu. Can you show a screenshot?

 

[macOScurious]

I am not seeing that hamburger menu. Can you show a screenshot?

If you are still on macOS 15.7 ? With Safari 26 ? You need to update (only) Safari to Safari 26.0.1 what is a bugfix update for an other bug in Safari with 15.7. This update should also fix your problem. As far as I know in MacOS 15.7 there is NO such hamburger menu.

 

[KALLT]

The hamburger menu is indeed not present on macOS 15.7 with Safari 26.0.1. That won't solve the OP's (and my) problem.

I wonder if the setting can be applied with a defaults command.

 

[max pl]

I had the same problem. Reformatted the OS to get rid of both Tahoe and this stupid Safari update. Worst updates from Apple in years.

Sorry for not helping with your problem.

 

[KALLT]

I have found a way to use the compact mode in macOS 15.7.

This enables the compact mode, i.e. removes the hostnames and descriptions (you need to quit Safari to see the effect):

defaults write -app Safari SidebarBookmarksCompactViewModePreference -bool YES

This disables the grouping of folders and bookmarks and also removes the "recently saved" section

defaults write -app Safari SidebarBookmarksHierarchyViewPreference -bool YES

You can swap `YES` with `NO` to disable these settings again or use these commands to restore the Safari default:

defaults delete -app Safari SidebarBookmarksCompactViewModePreference
defaults delete -app Safari SidebarBookmarksHierarchyViewPreference

 

[lpoles]

Thanks @KALLT for these defaults -- they work perfectly. But I still have the problem that the lines are widely separated. Do you know if there is a defaults setting that will remove all that wasted white space and close the lines to a compact view?

 

[KALLT]

Thanks @KALLT for these defaults -- they work perfectly. But I still have the problem that the lines are widely separated. Do you know if there is a defaults setting that will remove all that wasted white space and close the lines to a compact view?

I haven't come across any other defaults. I found these only by looking at which default values Safari 26 on macOS 26 sets when you use the above-mentioned hamburger menu.

 

[SaMMyS]

I updated to safari 26.0.1 and now it looks like this: WTF are the circles around my traffic lights?

system: macOS Sequoia 15.7

More and more design flaws and bugs are introduced in every update. I feel sick.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I have found a way to use the compact mode in macOS 15.7.

I get the following error on macOS 15.7 for all the commands. Any ideas?

Could not write domain /Users/myuser/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari; exiting

(My username was edited out)

At least my traffic lights look correct with Safari 26.0.1, and it fixed the extreme microlag i was experiencing in Safari, which was INCREDIBLY annoying. (Writing in the address line, lag. Copying links, lag. Pasting links in Message, lag. Hovering over buttons, lag. Rending webpages, lag - It was insane!)

 

[MichaelJohnston]

I get the following error on macOS 15.7 for all the commands. Any ideas?

(My username was edited out)

At least my traffic lights look correct with Safari 26.0.1, and it fixed the extreme microlag i was experiencing in Safari, which was INCREDIBLY annoying. (Writing in the address line, lag. Copying links, lag. Pasting links in Message, lag. Hovering over buttons, lag. Rending webpages, lag - It was insane!)

Got it working by specifying the plist file directly (probably not kosher but idk)

defaults write ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist SidebarBookmarksCompactViewModePreference -bool YES

defaults write ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist SidebarBookmarksHierarchyViewPreference -bool YES

 

[2024]

I'm on 15.7 and Safari 26.0.1. With the new sidebar bookmarks design, the right-click to add a new folder has been removed. I have to go into the Bookmarks menu to do it now. Anyone know if this is a bug, or if the above suggestions bring back the mouse option?

 

[yyl]

I tried different ways suggested above to edit the defaults, but couldn't get them to work. Eventually I decided to move the folders of my most commonly used bookmarks directly into the "Favorites" folder, so I can access them from the Favorites bar on top while only taking a small amount of space. Then I collapsed the side bar entirely. Good riddance!

What's up with Apple obsessing over making macOS behave like iPadOS? Starting to feel like the Windows Tablet PC that never took off.

 

[2024]

Unfortunately the Favorites Bar doesn't allow any editing. Right-clicking on a bookmark in there selects it just like left-clicking on it.

As for navigation, a right-click option in the back arrow to select another bookmark folder (sort of like right-clicking on the back arrow in the Safari toolbar) would help a lot.