MacMost Now 367: Safari Bookmarks Bar Folders

You can use the Safari Bookmarks Bar to store you more often accessed bookmarks. But you can also use folders there to store larger numbers of bookmarks and groups of related bookmarks.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary with MacMost Now. On today's episode let's look at bookmark bar folders on Safari. So this week I'm doing something special with MacMost Now, I'm asking for your help. You see, MacMost, the podcast, and the website, they only grow when people find out about them through word of mouth. So, I'm asking you to help me out by mentioning MacMost in your blog, tweeting about it, mentioning it in your facebook status, reviewing it at iTunes, things like that. You can go to MacMost.com/helpout for some suggestions of really quick and easy ways you can help spread the word about the MacMost Now video podcast. Thanks! And in return, this week I'm doing 5 episodes instead of my usual 3.
Now if you've been using web browsers for a long time, you've seen bookmarks evolve. First, it was just a simple pull down menu. You could add items to it and you could pull the menu down, and jump to a web page. Now you can organize your bookmarks, put them in folders, do all sorts of things, and there's the bookmarks bar in Safari which is very useful. But, it's a limited amount of real estate. It's just across the top of the browser window. However, you can add folders in it, and create a lot of complexity, and store a lot of bookmarks in this bookmarks bar.
So, here's pretty much the default bookmarks bar that you get when you first launch Safari. You'll notice some bookmarks here of some single websites you could jump to. You also notice two folders here. If you click on these, they act as pull down menus listing a bunch of different websites. So, for instance, you can go to this popular one and it lists of bunch of websites, ones that Apple has pre-populated in there for you. This one's even more interesting because in addition to a bunch of websites, you've got RSS feed in here, and the RSS feed even shows you the number of items in the feed and you see that number at a total here.
So, how do you edit these. Well there are a lot of things you can do. You can click and drag them to move them around in the bar, and you can also CTRL-click or right click on them and do things like edit the name, edit the address, copy, even delete. You can also click on the Show in Collections which will take you to the same place if you go to bookmarks, and show all bookmarks. Here is says Hide all Bookmarks because I'm already looking at them. And here, you can see on the left, Collections which include things like your history and things like that, and you could also look at bookmarks menu, and you can do bookmarks bar, which I have selected. These are the items that you can see at the top here. I can rearrange them in here as well. I can also look inside folders here, and even move items inside folders or out of folders to the main bar. So while you have limited space here at the top, you can do some really interesting things. For instance, once your in here, you can hit the plus button at the bottom, just off the screen, and create a new folder, so let's call that one MacMost for instance, and I can now add some bookmarks inside there, so, for instance, let's go to MacMost.com and let's bookmark this page. Let's add bookmarks, and it'll bring this up and I can now select, in bookmarks bar, that MacMost folder that I've created, and click add. Now let's also go into the Top News page at MacMost and bookmark that. And it will automatically go back to that same folder, I'll add it. Now, when I show all bookmarks, I can see in MacMost I've got these two here. I can change the names of these by clicking on them and then hitting return to change, just as you would change the name of a file in the finder. So, I can change this one to MacMost Home, this one I'll keep as Top Apple Related News, I can change the urls if I want to, and now in the bookmarks bar, I've got this MacMost pull down here with two links, these are the two most commonly visited pages in this site here. I can easily visit both of them, but only taking up one slot in the bookmarks bar.
Now, you can use folders in a more traditional way as well. For instance, you can create categories. So I can create a news category, entertainment category, games category, reviews category and organize your bookmarks that way, putting each thing in there, and you can even create one for your most important bookmarks like ones that effect your site or your social media accounts as well. It's a way for you to fit hundreds of bookmarks right into that bookmarks bar and have them easily accessible by just click, drag and select.
You can even put folders inside of folders, so for instance, I've added to the MacMost pull down another folder called favorite videos. In here I'm storing bookmarks of all of my favorite videos from MacMost. Another thing you could do with a folder here is select it by right clicking or CTRL clicking and select open in tabs, and what this will do is it will open every single one of the items in here in a separate tab. So say, first thing in the morning you want to check facebook, you want to check twitter, you want to check your google reader page, you can put them all inside of one of these folders, click it, right click it, select open in tabs, and it will open all those web pages at once. 
So, hope you found this look at Safari bookmark bar useful, till next time, this is Gary Rosenzweig with MacMost Now.

Comments: 11 Responses to “MacMost Now 367: Safari Bookmarks Bar Folders”

Gill AND JANE JACOBSON

15 years ago

How about making a printable quick sheet on how to.Short instructions that I can print and then insert in my Switching to a Mac it would keep my book current and I can follow the instructions at my pace.I'am not young or brilliant and am first time user of computer.The help window on a mac falls short on tips you guys give.I do watch your videos but they take time loading but I like them very much.Very old guy thanks

Gary Rosenzweig

Do you mean like this: http://macmost.com/printable-mac-keyboard-shortcut-page-for-snow-leopard.html

David

14 years ago

I'm sorry, can you explain how to put folders inside of other folders for me? I tried just dragging them in but that didn't work.

Try this: Go to Bookmarks, Show All Bookmarks. Click on the Bookmarks Bar entry in the left sidebar. Then use that interface to create and arrange folders.

Cindy Taylor

13 years ago

Can you alphabetize bookmarks?

I don't think so. Haven't tried in Safari 5.1. But it is so easy to search bookmarks that it might not be an issue. Try searching.

steven Greene

Have you figured out if you can alphabetize bookmarks as I have so many it is pain to look through them

Wouldn't using the handy search feature be better than looking at them alphabetically? I mean alphabetical is only useful if you already know what you are looking for.

Mr Anthony Cotton

I just wanted to know how you could add a bookmark folder in the bookmarks.In your video you said it`s just off the screen at the bottom there is a plus sign. I played your video twice,and payed particular attention to when you described this,when i watched it the second time. It worked just like you said. Before i even watched your video i told 3 people about your sight. The answer i got back 2 said yes i will be using the site,but the other one was using his Notepad,and googling the answers. Thanks very much Gary.

I have just followed the link you provided for the short cuts,and downloaded them.
I would just like to say it would have taken me ages to find this out, even on the Apple site. Thanks again Gary.

leslie efird

Well I was looking for tutorial on bookmarks for Safari. Safari tutorial site led me in circles. Googled safari bookmark tutorials and macmost came up. Answered my question and quickly. I have bookmarked macmost and will go there for my next "help" question. Hopefully ill be so satisfied on my next question.

Comments Closed.

MacMost Now 367: Safari Bookmarks Bar Folders

Comments: 11 Responses to “MacMost Now 367: Safari Bookmarks Bar Folders”

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