Deleting Safari bookmarks from iCloud

[rbpeirce]

I've googled this to death and can find no solution. What happened was I was attempting to set up syncing between my MBP and iPhone. Sync worked but the MBP bookmarks, which were all in folders, got synced to the iPhone as individual bookmarks and that got synced back to my MBP totally screwing everything up! I was able to turn of syncing, which deleted the bookmarks on the iPhone, and restore the Bookmark.plist on my MBP. However, if I turn MBP syncing back on I get the previous mess out of iCloud. At this point syncing seems to be impossible unless I can clean up iCloud.

 

[IWT]

I think the problem is that the iPhone may not be able to cope with Folders, Sub-Folders and such. I've had to concede defeat on this. But, as is often the case, someone else may have found a workaround.

What does surprise me is not the absence of Folders etc on the iPhone; but the fact that the syncing procedure backfired on your MBPro and screwed up its Folder structure. That has not happened to me - yet.

I recognise that I've not solved your problem in any way, but the Bookmark Structures appear to be different on an iDevice versus the Computer - but that shouldn't backfire on your Mac.

Sorry for not being more helpful.

Ian

 

[ferrarr]

Are you using Safari or a different browser?

 

[rbpeirce]

Are you using Safari or a different browser?

Deleting Safari bookmarks from iCloud​

 

[rbpeirce]

I think the problem is that the iPhone may not be able to cope with Folders, Sub-Folders and such. I've had to concede defeat on this. But, as is often the case, someone else may have found a workaround.

What does surprise me is not the absence of Folders etc on the iPhone; but the fact that the syncing procedure backfired on your MBPro and screwed up its Folder structure. That has not happened to me - yet.

I recognise that I've not solved your problem in any way, but the Bookmark Structures appear to be different on an iDevice versus the Computer - but that shouldn't backfire on your Mac.

Sorry for not being more helpful.

Ian

You have confirmed this probably isn't something I'm doing wrong. However, as you say, somebody may have a solution but I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

[ferrarr]

When I select Bookmarks on the iPhone, I get my folders.


I have had folders for more than 10 years and I don't ever remember them not being there on my phone.

 

[IWT]

Well, I'll be darned, Bob! I've never managed that on iPhone or iPad.

Now - how can we help @rbpeirce?

Ian

 

[rbpeirce]

When I select Bookmarks on the iPhone, I get my folders.

View attachment 39436
I have had folders for more than 10 years and I don't ever remember them not being there on my phone.

I get folders but I also get bookmarks outside folders that should be inside. It is as if the sync creates the folders in iPhone but then puts the bookmarks in the top layer rather than in the folders. Then iCloud syncs this mess back to my MBP!!

Also, are you syncing between your phone and Mac and if so which was the original source? My problem is trying to populate the iPhone bookmarks FROM my MBP.

 

[ferrarr]

Also, are you syncing between your phone and Mac

Yes, I sync once a month maybe from/to my Mac. I do have somer bookmarks not in folders as I don't need folders for every type of bookmark. Are you sure you don't have the books in both locations?

 

[rbpeirce]

Yes, I sync once a month maybe from/to my Mac. I do have somer bookmarks not in folders as I don't need folders for every type of bookmark. Are you sure you don't have the books in both locations?

From or to? I'm trying to sync what I have on my MBP to my iPhone. I now have syncing off on both which allows me to delete the iPhone bookmarks, so it is clean. Unfortunately, iCloud now seems to have the totally messed up version in backup, so what I need to do is 1) delete the bookmark backup from iCloud, 2) create a new backup of what is on my MBP and 3) turn syncing back on on the iPhone and hopefully get what is on my MBP. I also have to turn syncing off on my MBP before turning it on on the iPhone to avoid any chance of the iPhone syncing garbage back. Right now I have good bookmarks on the MBP, nothing on the iPhone and garbage in iCloud.

 

[ferrarr]

From or to?

I don't know how to tell? I use Finder and then Sync. Then it syncs and I'm done.

Is there a way to sync from the phone?

 

[MacInWin]

@rbpeirce , can you describe HOW you have it set up to "sync?" My bookmarks sync just fine, in folders, just like @ferrarr has said and shown. In your first post, you referred to

I was attempting to set up syncing between my MBP and iPhone.

but didn't say how you did that setup. The reason I ask is that when I sign into iCloud.com I don't see any bookmarks there, and the only place I found where bookmarks could be was under "Data Recovery," but I don't have any there and don't know how to get them there. I don't use iCloud drive and I don't have "Optimize storage" on my Mac turned on, so I don't think iCloud is actually storing any bookmarks, just to sync them between devices.

So, what is your iCloud setup? Are you using iCloud Drive? What steps did you take in the attempt to set up syncing? Maybe one of the steps you took is what triggered the behavior, and if we can figure that out and undo it, sync should then work for bookmarks just fine.

 

[ferrarr]

Jake, do you have any bookmarks saved in Safari?

 

[MacInWin]

Yes, hundreds, some in folders, some not.

 

[rbpeirce]

I don't know how to tell? I use Finder and then Sync. Then it syncs and I'm done.

Is there a way to sync from the phone?

I first deleted all the bookmarks on the iPhone then turn sync on so it was coming from the MBP. Unfortunately it then reversed and screwed up the bookmarks on the MBP.

 

[rbpeirce]

@rbpeirce , can you describe HOW you have it set up to "sync?" My bookmarks sync just fine, in folders, just like @ferrarr has said and shown. In your first post, you referred to

but didn't say how you did that setup. The reason I ask is that when I sign into iCloud.com I don't see any bookmarks there, and the only place I found where bookmarks could be was under "Data Recovery," but I don't have any there and don't know how to get them there. I don't use iCloud drive and I don't have "Optimize storage" on my Mac turned on, so I don't think iCloud is actually storing any bookmarks, just to sync them between devices.

So, what is your iCloud setup? Are you using iCloud Drive? What steps did you take in the attempt to set up syncing? Maybe one of the steps you took is what triggered the behavior, and if we can figure that out and undo it, sync should then work for bookmarks just fine.

Originally I turned off syncing on the phone which allowed me to delete all the bookmarks there. Then I turned on syncing for the MBP, waited a while, and turned the iPhone on. The stuff stored in iCloud populated the iPhone with garbage and did the same to my MBP. I turned syncing off on both and restored the Bookmarks.plist for the MBP from Time Machine. Now I'm waiting for more info before I try it again. As far as I can tell iCloud has its own idea of what the bookmarks look like and I have to delet4e that before I can try again..

 

[MacInWin]

then turn sync on so it was coming from the MBP.

What, exactly, does that mean? What did you click, check, type, or however you did it, to "turn sync on"?

 

[MacInWin]

As far as I can tell iCloud has its own idea of what the bookmarks look like and I have to delet4e that before I can try again.

I don't think so. iCloud doesn't "store" bookmarks as it doesn't have a brower to use them. It just relays them from one to another device. However, if you have iCloud Drive (A different thing) turned on, or if you have "Optimise Storage" turned on, things change. So, I ask again, exactly WHAT did you do to turn sunc on/off?

 

[rbpeirce]

OK. I'm using iCloud Drive and my understanding is the bookmarks are backed up there, but I can't figure out how to get at them.

Turning sync on depends on the device. On the MBP it is an on/off switch in System Settings->My Name->iCloud->Show More Apps->Safari. On the iPhone it is an on/off switch in Settings->My Name->iCloud->Show All->Safari. I am currently off on both.

I believe the first time I turned sync on for the MBP that my bookmarks were backed up to the iCould drive. Then when I turned sync on for the iPhone they were downloaded, but not correctly. The incorrect download then got synced back to the iCould Drive and down to my MBP corrupting its bookmarks. Whatever is currently stored in the iCloud drive is wrong and I don't know how to clean it out and start over.

 

[MacInWin]

That helps. Log into iCloud.com with your AppleID, then click on the checkerboard icon in the upper right corner. One of the options is "Data Recovery." ON the resulting screen is an area labelled "Restore Bookmarks" where, I think, you can see the various copies of bookmarks sorted probably by dates. (I cannot say for sure, because I have no bookmarks there at all. I don't use iCloud Drive, which is where the Recovery data comes from.) See if you can delete them from there.

I, too, have the System Settings>Name>iCloud>Show More Apps>Safari toggled ON on my Mac, and ditto for my iPhone. The only difference between us is your use of iCloud Drive. You didn't mention your "Optimize Storage" setting, but I do suspect iCloud Drive is the issue. Turning iCloud Drive off is not trivial to do, as it requires a bit of work to get back to where you were before turning it on. If you want to do that. Apple is not really very forthcoming on that, but I found this in the Community pages: How do you turn OFF icloud drive - Apple Community

Bear in mind that files that have been moved to iCloud Drive and then "evicted" to be only in the cloud will need to be downloaded from the cloud to be put onto your internal drive again. Make sure you have room for them, as any evicted drive may well have been compressed as part of the eviction process and will expand as they are reestablished on the internal drive. As I said, it's not trivial.