How to Sync Safari Bookmarks Between Mac OS X, Windows, iPhone, & iPad

Bookmarks saved within Safari will sync between all of your other iCloud equipped devices, assuming you have iCloud configured correctly do so. This means a website you bookmark on your Mac will sync over to an iPad, and something bookmarked on your iPhone will sync back to your Mac, iPad, and Windows PC, and vice versa. Bookmarking syncing is incredibly useful, and if you haven’t enabled it yet be sure to take a minute or two to do so.

To sync bookmarks between your devices you will need iCloud set up to use the same account on each device you wish to sync the bookmarks between. Unless you’re using separate Apple ID’s on different devices, that is usually the case by default.

Enable Bookmark Syncing on a Mac (or Windows PC)

For OS X:

• Pull down the  Apple menu and select “System Preferences”, then choose the iCloud panel
• Locate “Safari” under the list of iCloud services and be sure it is checked

Note that iCloud in OS X will sync bookmarks only from and between the Safari browser.

For Windows:

• Open Control Panels and open iCloud
• Check the box next to “Bookmarks”

Slightly different than the Mac, iCloud configured in Windows will sync bookmarks from and between Safari and Internet Explorer, assuming both have been set in the Options.

Enable Bookmark Syncing in iOS on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch

• Open “Settings” and go to “iCloud”
• Find “Safari” and make sure it is toggled ON

That’s the only required settings adjustment in iOS, though iCloud must obviously be on to access those preferences.

How Do You Actually Sync Bookmarks?

Now that configuration is all done, syncing bookmarks is incredibly simple: just save a bookmark in Safari on any of your devices. That’s it, it will automatically sync to other devices in just a moment or two, the only requirement is that each Mac, iPhone, iPad, PC, or whatever, is connected to the internet as well.

This set up process will also enable Reading List syncing, which is a great way to share links, sites, and webpages that you want to read or review on another OS X or iOS device but that is not necessarily worth bookmarking on it’s own. Put another way, bookmarks can be best for an entire website, whereas Reading List is more ideal for individual articles or pages on a website (i.e.: bookmark osxdaily.com, use Reading List for a specific article)

We get this question fairly frequently and it’s not unusual for people to run into issues with bookmarks not syncing on their own, so it’s about time we cover it. Thanks to Pat for the tip idea.