Lost all Safari bookmarks

[larrycruzen]

I had many web pages saved and organized in Bookmarks, including recipes, boating articles, etc.

Yesterday all bookmarks got wiped clean....maddening. This has never happened before.

I need to understand what happened. As far as I know, I didn't reset or clear anything

Larry Cruzen

 

[twerppoet]

In Safari?

Check Settings > iCloud and see if Safari is turned on.

Do you use Safari on an iMac or another other device? If you did something to bookmarks on those devices, and they usethe same iCloud acacount they would have synced back to the device.

It's also possible iCloud freeked out. In that case your sheep may come wandering home on their own; provide the settings is turned on in iCloud. Given your data constraints, iCloud data syncing is probably not as reliable as it should be.

If you have a recent backup, and don't mind losing stuff you've done since that backup; you can probably restore you bookmarks that way. There's always some risk of losing documents when restoring, so making sure all important documents and photos are stored in second place (computer or in the cloud) is a good idea.

 

[larrycruzen]

I had settings/iCloud/safari turned off because I didn't want safari pumping a bunch of junk to iCloud (data limitations). I just turned it on.....viola! All bookmarks are back. Thank you, Twerppoet.

Now, I gotta say, I just don't understand this iCloud & iCloud Drive stuff. I have many apps turned off in iCloud (mail, notes, news, etc). Don't need that stuff stored somewhere in the atmosphere....might contribute to global warming.

I have contacts & calendar turned on in iCloud, hoping that it will keep our two iPads and iPhones synced. I guess it does sometimes......not sure.

iCloud Drive? No idea what that does other than confuse an old engineer.

Larry Cruzen

 

[twerppoet]

Glad it worked.

Safari doesn't sync much, just the lists: history, bookmarks, and the reading list. Only the reading list is potentialy data heavy, since the device will try to catch those web pages locally for offline reading. If you don't save sites to the reading list, then it should be a non-issue.