Bookmarks, Favorites, and Top Sites

Another way to begin your web session is to click a bookmark.

In any web browser, bookmarks are essential. They represent sites you want to visit again later. By picking one from a list, you save yourself the trouble of searching the web or typing out an address.

Safari happens to be overrun with systems of adding and choosing bookmarks; you can’t move your cursor without bumping into one. Read on.

Adding a Bookmark

When you find a web page you might like to visit again, do yourself a favor: Bookmark it.

Here’s how:

  • Press ⌘-D, or choose Bookmarks→Add Bookmark. Proceed as shown in Figure 17-3.

  • Press Shift-⌘-D to add the bookmark to the menu instantly. No questions asked, no dialog box presented.

  • Point to the far-left edge of the address bar; hold your cursor down on the button that appears. This time, you get a pop-up menu of the standard locations (Favorites, Bookmarks Menu, and so on); choose where you want this bookmark stored. This is a quick method, but it doesn’t offer you the chance to rename the bookmark.

When you add a bookmark, Safari offers to memorize this web page’s name, or a shorter name that you specify for it.You also have to specify where you want to save your new bookmark; as you can see, Safari offers several options.There’s the Bookmarks menu, or any folders you’ve set up inside it.There are the Favorites, a special set of bookmarks that you think you’ll use a lot. They get their own special screen and their own special bar, as you’ll read in a moment.There are the Top Sites (page 690).Finally, there’s the master list, the Bookmarks list in the Sidebar; as you can see by (a) in Figure 17-4, this list lets you further categorize your bookmarks by putting them into folders.

Figure 17-3. When you add a bookmark, Safari offers to memorize this web page’s name, or a shorter name that you specify for it. You also have to specify where you want to save your new bookmark; as you can see, Safari offers several options. There’s ...

Get OS X El Capitan: The Missing Manual now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial