How do you back up bookmarks, favorites?

TuckerdogAVL

TuckerdogAVL

Registered
Why is this hidden? Why when you go to APPLE HELP and type in "Back up bookmarks" you feel like the FIRST person to ever ask this question?

I want to back up bookmarks, favorites, mail and address book. I am running 10.3.9.

i THINK (operative word) I have backed up mail (going to the library/mail/ and options, moving to my firefly) and I think I've backed up address book.

How do I back up bookmarks and favorites? I went to Safari, found the Plists and backed those up. Does that do it?

And if that is right....if I have to import....how do I get there? By copying back onto the hard drive where these existed? Why is this so difficult? I suspect 1,000s of people would like to do this....

Thanks in advance.

Gazzer
 
TuckerdogAVL said:
I want to back up bookmarks, favorites, mail and address book. I am running 10.3.9.
How do I back up bookmarks and favorites? I went to Safari, found the Plists and backed those up. Does that do it?
And if that is right....if I have to import....how do I get there? By copying back onto the hard drive where these existed? Why is this so difficult?
Click to expand...

I think you have this figured out already. There's not much more to this than backing up the relevant folders, and you seem to have no trouble with finding those. The bookmarks file for Safari is simply the bookmarks.plist file in that Safari folder.
If you need to restore, placing the files in the same place is all that is usually needed.
This can seem difficult if you are not confident of the proper files to save, but I think you are on the right track!
 
Please do _not_ post question threads in the HOWTO & FAQs forum. That one's for answers and guides. Read forum descriptions etc. :)

And on topic: Yes, you'd simply backup that bookmarks.plist file and restore it to its proper place when you need to.
 
Backing up ...

Address Book:
'~/Library/Address Book Plug-Ins/'
'/Users/s/Library/Application Support/AddressBook'
'/Library/Address Book Plug-Ins/', and
'~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.plist'

Mail:
'/Library/Mail/',
'~/Library/Mail/', and
'~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist'

Safari:
'~/Library/Safari/', , and
'~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist'

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'Thanks. But, seriously, why is this hidden from "help?"' - do you really expect an official 'Apple Inc.' statement via 'macosx.com'? (rhetorical)

Into 'Help Viewer' I entered 'backup Mail' (then again with 'backup Safari', and then 'backup Address').
Under 'Support Articles' - 'How to back up and restore your important mac OS X 10.4 files' was selected (double clicked).

Clear instructions were then displayed.

I do not consider the above navigation as hidden.

-----

'bookmarks and favorites?' - with respect to web browsers, a Macintosh 'bookmark' link is equivalent to a Windoze 'favorite' link. When the '~/Library/Safari/' folder is saved - so is the 'bookmarks.plist' file, in it.

-----

With respect to 'Windoze' 'Windows Explorer' windows - a 'shortcut'* file is the equivalent to a Macintosh 'alias' file.

* - corrected. Originally stated as 'favorite'. The correction is based on the appreciated observation of DeltaMac.
 
I agree, the help is not hidden. It's really about deciding what terms to use when searching. The same ideas are used with Google, and other search engines. It just takes a little thinking, (and a few wrong guesses) to discover the most productive terms to use when searching.
In your Mac help, some search terms will not bring up very many results if you are not connected to the internet.

A Mac 'alias' file is closer to a windows 'shortcut', not a favorite.
 
Well, I guess I was having the "glitch" for searching that day because "Back up mail," "back up bookmarks," "mail back up," "save favorites" etc only got me long lists of things like "How to open your mail," "How to read your mail," "what is mail?" "Sending and receiving mail" that sort of thing. Which is why I asked. Not to waste your time; but to find out how to do something.
 
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