13 Tips For Getting the Most From the Safari Sidebar

The Safari Sidebar is a useful tool for quick access to tabs, bookmarks, your reading list and more. You can activate it in a variety of ways and there are hidden features as well.
Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to use the Sidebar in Safari on your Mac. 
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Now the Sidebar in Safari is the tool that appears on the left side of the Safari window. So for instance I can bring it up here in Safari by clicking on the Show Sidebar button which usually appears right to the right of the red, yellow, and green dot. You click that and then you get the Sidebar. Now how the Sidebar looks and works depends a lot on which version of Safari you've got. Apple has changed it a lot over the years and probably will continue to change it. In this video I'm using Safari version 17.3.1 in macOS Sonoma. 
Now the sidebar actually has three different modes. One mode is to show your Tabs and Tab Groups. That's what you've got here. But you can also switch to a mode that shows your Bookmarks. You can go back with this Back Button at the top left. Then a third mode is just to show your Reading List articles. So, these are kind of like bookmarks but it is just one list of the specific webpages that you decided you want to get back to at some point. 
You may notice there are two more items shared with you in iCloud Tabs. These are both part of iCloud and you may or may not have these turned On. If you have them both turned On you may see them here. But notice how they don't actually change what is in the Sidebar. If I choose Shared With You it actually shows the content on the right and the sidebar remains showing the Tabs. If I choose iCloud Tabs likewise it shows the content on the right, not in the Sidebar. The Sidebar is still showing your Tab and Tab Groups. So really there are only three modes here. The Tab and Tab Groups mode, Bookmarks mode, and Reading List mode. 
So my first tip is there are different ways to bring up the Sidebar and to Close it. I showed you how the button here opens and closes the sidebar. But you could also do the same thing by going to View and then you could do Show Sidebar right here. Notice the Keyboard Shortcut is Shift, Command, L. This will both show the Sidebar and the same command will Hide the Sidebar. But you could also use two other shortcuts right underneath. Show Bookmarks Sidebar and Show Reading List Sidebar. These will show the sidebar and switch it to one of these two modes.
There is another way to bring up the Sidebar and that only works if you have the Safari window in Full Screen Mode. So I'm going to click on the Green Button here and go to Full Screen Mode for Safari. Now this mode, if I move my pointer over here to the left side, it will automatically bring it up. Now in this case I have Bookmarks mode. I can actually choose a bookmark and by doing so it will not only go to that bookmark but it will dismiss the sidebar. So it is a quick way to choose bookmarks. But also if I bring it up by going to the left and then simply move the pointer to the right it will go away instantly. So it is kind of a way to temporarily bring up the sidebar. Whereas if you click on this button here it will bring it up and it will remain there until you click again. The same with the keyboard shortcuts and menu items. 
Now when you do have the sidebar open you aren't stuck with the size. You can actually click and drag this line here. So you can make it larger or smaller. So if you've got long items in here and you want to read them all you can give yourself some more space or if you want to kind of minimize it you can drag it as far to the left as you can so you have more space for the webpages. 
Now instead of bringing up the sidebar and then going to the bottom here to go to Bookmarks or Reading Lists you can jump directly to Bookmarks and Reading Lists by using the menu items in the View Menu. So you've got Show Bookmarks Sidebar and Show Reading List Sidebar with the corresponding Keyboard Shortcuts, Control Command 1 and Control Command 2. So even though the hidden sidebar now is in the Tabs Mode you can open it up and go directly to the Bookmarks using this item right here and you can jump to the Reading List by using this one right here. If you're already in that mode and you choose the same item again or use the same keyboard shortcut it closes the sidebar completely. So you can use Control Command 1 to bring up Bookmarks and Control Command 2 to Close it. 
Now what about Shared with You in iCloud Tabs. When you select that it replaces everything on the right here. All the tabs you've got with Share With You or iCloud Tabs. So for instance Shared With You, these are items that you've got in Messages that include Links. So if a friend of yours send you lots of links and you want to get to one of them you can, of course, click on it in Messages, but you could also go to Shared With You and see all of those right there along with the Preview. iCloud Tabs will show you webpages you have opened in other devices. So, in other words, on your iPhone, your iPad, and maybe another Mac. So Share With You can be disabled in the Messages App and iCloud Tabs can be disabled in System Settings. So if you don't see them that might be why. But as far as dealing with them here you can see all of your Tabs are gone and you basically have to choose one of these and jump to that page. But notice that since you happen to be in Tabs, View Sidebar in order to select one of these you can simply select your Tab Group here and it will return you to it. Even if you have multiple Tab Groups, let's open up a new empty Tab Group here, you can go to Shared With You and then notice how I can choose either one of these Tab Groups and it will jump back to it. 
Now Shared With You only shows up here if you select this item in the Sidebar. But you can also get to it by going to View, and then you can use Hide or Show Shared With You. So you've got a Keyboard Shortcut for that. But there isn't a Keyboard Shortcut for iCloud Tabs. If you choose iCloud Tabs the only way to get out of it is to choose one of them or to click on one of the Tab Groups here in the Sidebar. 
You can also access iCloud Tabs on the Start Page. So I'm going to create a new Tab using Command T and I've got my settings in Safari set to New Tabs Open With a Start Page. But I could also use Bookmarks, Show Start Page, to jump to it in any Tab. You can see here I've got a variety of things in the Start Page including Shared With You and the iCloud Tabs at the bottom. You can customize this by clicking at the bottom right and choosing what is shown on the Start Page. So the Sidebar isn't the only place to get to Shared With You in iCloud Tabs. You can do it in the Start Page as well. 
Now a lot of people may only use the Sidebar for Bookmarks. It's a handy place to see all of your Bookmarks and to be able to choose one and jump to that page. But you can also do somethings with Bookmarks here. For instance I can drag them around to reorder them, move them into folders and out of folders. I can Control Click or two-finger click on a trackpad, right click on a mouse and from here I can choose Open a New Tab, Open a New Window, Open in a Tab Group. You can rename the bookmark. I can Edit the address and I can even Delete bookmarks from here. I can create new folders. There is a lot you can do to maintain your bookmarks in the Sidebar. 
However, I often hear of people getting frustrated trying to maintain their bookmarks in the Sidebar. They don't realize that you've got a better way to do it. You go to Bookmarks and then go to Edit Bookmarks. It gives you this nice, big view here where you can much more easily edit the bookmarks, the name, the URL, move things around, create new folders, search through them, and all of that. So if you want to quickly rename something or move it doing it in the Sidebar is fine. But if you really want to kind of work on managing your Bookmarks and spend some time there then I recommend going to Bookmarks, Edit Bookmarks instead. 
Another interesting thing is you can do with Bookmarks is you can drag and drop to or from the Sidebar. It's kind of weird though to drag an item from the Sidebar over to the main part of Safari because you can just click on it. So I'm not sure why you would drag it. But, you can actually drag the other way which makes more sense. So if you see a link here and you don't necessarily want to go to it right now, but you want to add it as a bookmark, you can drag that link into Bookmarks, like that. You can even select the URL here and as long as it is selected as text you can drag it into the Bookmark's Sidebar as well. The same thing is true with the Reading List. Bring up the Reading List here you can drag and drop from the right side into the Reading List and it will appear there. 
Now one thing people don't realize they can do in the Sidebar is they can Search. They can Search both Bookmarks and the Reading List. So where's the Search Field? All you need to do is use your Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad and then scroll down and you can see here, you've got a Search Field. So you can search the Reading List for something that is handy if you've got a lot there. It also works in Bookmarks. You can scroll down like that and you've got Search Bookmarks there. 
Now there is an interesting feature in Bookmarks where you can actually see a Preview of everything in a folder. So, for instance, here under Favorites I've got these three items in the folders there. If I Control Click on it I can choose Show Folder Contents and look what happens. It expands those items there kind of like they are in a reading list and it shows you a little preview. Either the site icon or tries to generate something from a photo in the article and you get a little bit more information about each item there. Use the Back Button here to go back and you can see everything is just as before. 
One of the main things you might want to do with the Reading List is to Save Offline. When you choose this that particular item is then saved to your cache so it can be viewed even if you disconnect from the internet. You can Control Click again and don't save to actually unload it. You can go to Safari and Settings and then under Advanced you can change the Reading List so that articles are automatically saved for offline reading. 
If you scroll down you not only get a Search Field but you get a toggle between listing all of the items in your Reading List or just the unread ones. If you go to one of these it is going to mark it as Read but it will still be in the list as all until you go to the Context Menu and remove it. Now you can also mark an item as read if it has not been read and you can also mark an item as unread if it has been read. So you can decide whether an item appears in the Unread List or not. 
Now my last tip has to do with using the Sidebar with the Tab Mode. So you can see here I can easily use this to, say, switch back to the tabs as if I, say, go to iCloud Tabs. I can go back to my tabs. But I can also use it to switch between Tab Groups. So if I create a new Tab Group here I can switch between these Tab Groups by selecting it. But you can do even more than that because you can open up a Tab Group and get a list of all the tabs. I can use this list to switch between tabs instead of actually clicking at the top of the Safari window. So I can switch between tabs like that. Now that can be incredibly useful if you have a lot of tabs open. So imagine 10 or 20 or more tabs. It is hard to find the one you want. But in the Sidebar it might be a lot easier since you have more space to read the names. Plus you can also drag and drop these. So I can reorder the tabs using the Sidebar than using the tabs themselves. I can even drag and drop to another Tab Group, like that, and if you Control Click on the tabs here in the Sidebar you can do all sorts of various things to them including Closing the tabs, Closing everything but that tab, Closing all the tabs below this one, moving a tab to a window, copying the link from the tab, or choose Arrange Tabs By and it will resort all of the tabs so you can get them in alphabetical order. 
Now I mentioned before how the Sidebar has changed a lot with almost every version of Safari and I expect it to continue to do so. So if you're using an older version of Safari you're probably not seeing the same thing that I'm showing you here. But what would be nice to see in the future is to have all of these items appear in the Sidebar. For instance not have Shared With You and iCloud Tabs show up on the right. There is no reason that they can't appear in the Sidebar just like the Reading List does. In fact, I have to think that is why they are listed there at the bottom of the Sidebar is that they really do belong here and eventually will migrate to the side.  
So if you're watching this in the future keep in mind that while some of these tips may still work others may need to adjust to how the Sidebar works in the version of Safari you're currently using. 
I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.
Comments: 2 Responses to “13 Tips For Getting the Most From the Safari Sidebar”

Roy Whelden
2 months ago
I have to say that I've never gotten offline reading in Safari to work.
David Taenzer
I still don’t understand why you can easily edit the Reading List on the iPhone and iPad but not on the Mac. If you want to remove items from the reading list on the Mac you only have the options of removing them on at a time with the context menu or clearing out all of them. This is much better on the other devices and I hope they add the edit feature future versions.
13 Tips For Getting the Most From the Safari Sidebar

Comments: 2 Responses to “13 Tips For Getting the Most From the Safari Sidebar”

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