Resolved Safari putting new bookmarks into “collections”

[burntsienna]

OS X 10.10.5, Safari 8.0.8

For a couple of weeks I’ve been unable to save bookmarks in safari, or so I thought. When I would later check the bottom of the bookmarks list for the newest ones they weren’t there. Then I tried checking immediately after saving a new one and it was there before vanishing a moment later.

I've tried doing searches in bookmarks for them and they show up, but the parent column says they're in "collections." I have no collections folder. I've looked it up and apparently this is/was a feature of safari, but I can't seem to find anything at all about it in safari now.

Saving a bookmark into a specific subfolder doesn't have a problem, only when saving to the bookmarks folder. I already tried deleting the Bookmarks.plist while safari was running before making another bookmark and nothing changed.

While thinning out my unsorted bookmarks a little to see if that helped, I suddenly found all of the vanished bookmarks about 4/5 of the way down the list for no apparent reason. When searching for them they still show as have collections as the parent, but it looks like they all just moved up the bookmarks list.

As far as I can remember I didn't change any settings before this started.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I distinctly remember this Safari feature. It shouldn't be present anymore, though. here's something to try: Export your entire bookmarks collection to HTML. Clear all your Safari bookmarks in Safari's bookmark editor. Then import the HTML file.

 

[burntsienna]

I distinctly remember this Safari feature. It shouldn't be present anymore, though. here's something to try: Export your entire bookmarks collection to HTML. Clear all your Safari bookmarks in Safari's bookmark editor. Then import the HTML file.

Well, now there's new strangeness.

• I exported the bookmarks to html and then highlighted and deleted everything except the Favorites folder, which I just opened and deleted everything out of.
• Imported the html file and dragged everything from its imported favorites folder into the old one and all of the rest of the folders and unsorted bookmarks into the top level of the bookmarks folder where they were before.
• Walked away for a few minutes.
• When I came back, everything that I moved had reverted back into the imported 9/13/15 folder.

After all that I then tried bookmarking something new into the bookmarks folder. The new item is showing up because it's the only item there and there's no list for it to get lost in, but if I do a search for it the parent is still listed as collections.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Well, now there's new strangeness.

• I exported the bookmarks to html and then highlighted and deleted everything except the Favorites folder, which I just opened and deleted everything out of.
• Imported the html file and dragged everything from its imported favorites folder into the old one and all of the rest of the folders and unsorted bookmarks into the top level of the bookmarks folder where they were before.
• Walked away for a few minutes.
• When I came back, everything that I moved had reverted back into the imported 9/13/15 folder.

After all that I then tried bookmarking something new into the bookmarks folder. The new item is showing up because it's the only item there and there's no list for it to get lost in, but if I do a search for it the parent is still listed as collections.

iCloud is doing that. Disable iCloud bookmark sync before trying this again.

 

[burntsienna]

iCloud is doing that. Disable iCloud bookmark sync before trying this again.

That worked.

So I think the deal was that when saving a new bookmark I'd normally press option-D and put it into "Bookmarks Menu", which was almost always already selected, but somehow for awhile I was using an option at the very top of the list just called "Bookmarks". Even now anything saved into Bookmarks (not Menu) shows its parent as collections.

I guess I'll just make sure to use Bookmarks Menu from now on.