Backup Safari Bookmarks
Safari stores bookmarks as a plist (property list) file named Bookmarks.plist. It’s located under Home Directory/Library/Safari. Bookmarks are stored on a per-user basis, with each user having their own bookmarks file. If you have multiple accounts on your Mac and want to back up or move all of the bookmarks files, access the above directory location for each user. To back up your Safari bookmarks, copy the Bookmarks.plist file to a new location. You can do this in one of two ways.
Restore Your Safari Bookmarks
All you need to restore your Safari bookmarks is to have a backup of the Bookmarks.plist file available. If the backup is in the compressed or zip format, you will need to double-click the Bookmarks.plist.zip file to decompress it first.
Move Safari Bookmarks to a New Mac
Moving your Safari bookmarks to a new Mac is essentially the same as restoring them. The only difference is that you will need a way to bring the Bookmarks.plist file to your new Mac. Because the file is small, you can easily email it to yourself. Other options are to move the file across a network, store it in the cloud using a storage solution such as Dropbox or iCloud, or put it on a USB flash drive or external hard drive. Once you have the Bookmarks.plist file on your new Mac, use the steps outlined above to make your bookmarks available.
iCloud Bookmarks
If you have an Apple ID, you can take advantage of iCloud’s bookmarks feature to sync Safari bookmarks across multiple Macs and iOS devices. To gain access to the iCloud-synced bookmarks, you need to set up an iCloud account on each Mac or iOS device that you wish to share bookmarks between. For sharing bookmarks, make sure there is a checkmark next to the Safari item in the list of iCloud services. As long as you’re signed in to your iCloud account on each Mac or iOS device you’re using, you should have all of your Safari bookmarks available across multiple devices and platforms.
Use Safari Bookmarks on Other Macs or PCs
If you travel a lot, you may want to bring along your Safari bookmarks. One method is to store your bookmarks in the cloud, so you can access them from anywhere you have an internet connection. This is helpful when you need to access your bookmarks from a public computer. When you use Safari’s Export Bookmarks option, the file Safari creates is actually an HTML listing of all of your bookmarks. You can take this file with you and open it in any browser, just like a normal web page. Of course, you don’t end up with bookmarks per se; instead, you end up with a web page that has a clickable list of all of your bookmarks. Though not as easy to use as the bookmarks in a browser, the list can still come in handy when you’re on the road. Here’s how to export your bookmarks.
