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Last updateSun, 09 Apr 2017 3pm

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Move The Bookmarks

Bookmarks or commonly called Favorites are used in your browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari to help remember your favorite websites. Selecting a saved bookmark will allow you to easily go to a website without remember or typing the URL.

When you get a new or add another computer to your network, that computer mostly will not have any bookmarks there. You do not have to start the favorite list all over again. You can copy the bookmarks to another computer any time.

There are two main ways to transfer bookmarks between machines. The first is the manual method where you back up your bookmarks to a file, then move the file to the new machine and restore it. The other way is syncing the bookmarks over the Internet cloud. This syncing is new and not all browsers have this feature built yet.

The Manual Way

In Internet Explorer 9, click the star icon on the right and for IE8, click the Favorites button to the left on the bookmark toolbar to get you to the 'Add to Favorites' button. Click the downward facing triangle, then select the Import and Export option.

If you have the menu bar there, go to File>>Import and Export. By default IE8 and IE9 don't have the menu bar turned on. This is the traditional bar with File, Edit and other menus. You can turn this on by right-clicking near the IE address bar and selecting Menu Bar.

Once the Import/Export Settings screen appears, select ' Export to a file' then click the 'Next' button to what information to export. Select the 'Favorites' checkbox then click on the 'Next' button to get the list of Favorites to export. Generally, you would select the 'Favorites' then click the 'Next' button to get to the settings to specify where you want to export. You leave the default location or enter destination of your choice. Just remember where you put that file. You copy/move to a flash drive or email it if you like. it will be a small htm file, example - mybookmarks.htm.

On the new or another computer, open the Internet Explorer and follow the above directions to get to the Import/Export Settings screen. This time you'll choose 'Import File'. Choose what information to Import and then choose the file location. Click 'Next' and your Favorites will be imported.

Firefox has a similar system. Go to Firefox button>>Bookmarks>>Show All Bookmarks. Then go to the Import and Backup button. Backup your bookmarks to a file. Then move the file to the new computer. To import, go to Firefox button>>Bookmarks>>Show All Bookmarks. Then go to the Import and Backup button. Select Restore>>Choose File. Select your file and you're done.

In Chrome, click the wrench icon and select Bookmark Manager. Then click Organize and select Export bookmarks. Move the resulting file to the new computer and import the bookmarks.

Finally, there's Safari on Mac. Open a Finder window and go to Home Directory>>Library>>Safari. Find the Bookmarks.plist file and copy it to a flash drive or another folder. You can do this by holding down the Option key while clicking and dragging the file. Move or email the file to your new computer. Then put it in the Library>>Safari folder. Start Safari and your bookmarks should be present.

The Syncing Way

 

This manual method is fine for moving bookmarks once or twice. What if you have more than two computers and you want your bookmarks on all of them. This moving or copying bookmarks can can get tedious. The latest versions of Firefox and Chrome have bookmark syncing capability built-in. Here, your bookmarks are stored in a cloud server. You can then bring them into a browser on any computer.

In Firefox, go to Firefox button>>Set up Sync. Click the Create a New Account button where you'll be taken through creating a username and password. On another computer, go to Firefox button>>Set up Sync. Then under "I already have an account" click Connect. Enter your account information. There you will be asked how to import your bookmarks. Sync can overwrite your existing bookmark information or merge it. Generally, you'll want to overwrite at first. At another time, you set it to merge your bookmarks. The changes in one browser will show up in the others automatically.

To sync in Chrome, click the wrench icon>>Options. Then go to the Personal Stuff section. Under Sync, click Set Up Sync. Follow the directions for syncing your bookmarks. Go to your new computer and follow the same instructions. Chrome will walk you through downloading your bookmarks. It will then keep the bookmarks in sync between your computers.