how to export reading list safari

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Exporting Links from Safari Reading List via Shortcuts for Mac

Reading List Exporter.

A few weeks ago in the second lesson of the Automation Academy for Club MacStories+ and Club Premier members, I wrote about how I’ve been using Reminders as a read-later app in addition to traditional task management. The full details are in the story, but to sum up: using a combination of shortcuts based on Apple’s native actions, I can use Reminders to choose between long and short stories whenever I’m in the mood to read something. I love this setup, and I’ve been using it for nearly three months now.

Earlier this week, however, I realized I still hadn’t re-imported old articles from Safari Reading List – my previous read-later tool – into Reminders. That immediately posed an interesting challenge. Sure, I could manually re-save each article from Safari Reading List to Reminders, but that sounded like a chore. Other read-later apps such as Reeder and GoodLinks have long offered Shortcuts actions to fetch links from their databases and process them in Shortcuts however you see fit; Reading List, like other Apple apps , doesn’t support any actions to get the URLs you previously saved. And that’s when I had an idea.

Now that it’s available on macOS, Shortcuts can get access to application support files that are kept private and hidden from users on iOS and iPadOS. More specifically, I remembered that Safari for Mac has long stored its bookmarks and Reading List items in a file called Bookmarks.plist , which folks have been able to read via AppleScript for years . Under the hood, a .plist file is nothing but a fancy dictionary, and we know that Shortcuts has excellent support for parsing dictionaries and extracting data from them.

The plan was simple, and I knew what to do.

Reading List Exporter

To make the process of migrating from Safari Reading List to other read-later apps easier, I created a shortcut called Reading List Exporter.

The shortcut is built entirely with native actions – no scripting necessary – and it reads Safari’s Bookmarks.plist database without modifying it (your data is safe and this shortcut is read-only). With Reading List Exporter, you can automate the process of batch-exporting URLs from Safari Reading List and save them all at once in other read-later apps, the clipboard, or a plain text file. If you’re a Club MacStories+ or Club Premier member, you can even integrate this with the Reminders read-later system I described here .

Running Reading List Exporter on iPad.

Reading List Exporter was designed to run on a Mac: the Bookmarks.plist file stored in ~/Library/Safari/ can only be accessed via Shortcuts’ ‘File’ action on macOS. Upon installing the shortcut, you’ll be asked to select the Bookmarks.plist file stored in the ~/Library/Safari/ folder in Finder. Select the file in the import question, and you’re good to go in terms of running this shortcut on Monterey.

When you install the shortcut, you’ll be asked to manually pick the Bookmarks.plist file in Finder.

Picking the Bookmarks.plist file in Finder. You have to do this only once.

Once the file is configured, you’re good to go.

If you don’t see the Library folder in Finder, there are a variety of ways to make it visible . The easiest method:

• Press ⇧⌘H in Finder to view your Home folder;
• Press ⌘J to open Finder’s View Options inspector;
• Select ‘Show Library Folder’

As long as you find a way to make the Library folder visible in Finder and can select the Bookmarks.plist file in ~/Library/Safari/ from Shortcuts, you’re good.

How to show the Library folder in Finder.

You can also run Reading List Exporter on iOS and iPadOS, but you’ll have to manually copy the ‘Bookmarks.plist’ file into iCloud Drive first. The disadvantage of this approach is that you won’t be working with a live version of Safari’s database – meaning that if you save new items to Reading List, you’ll have to export the Bookmarks.plist file again. That said, it’s totally fine to run the shortcut on iPhone and iPad once you have the Bookmarks.plist file saved somewhere.

If you want to run this shortcut on iOS or iPadOS, you’ll have to manually copy the Bookmarks.plist file to iCloud Drive first.

I won’t bore you with the technical details behind how I created this shortcut, but there’s a point I want to highlight. Previously, accessing and parsing Safari’s Bookmarks database would have required searching Google for some finicky piece of AppleScript code that doesn’t always work and is incomprehensible at a glance. This is why I find Shortcuts’ arrival on macOS such a big deal: it makes this kind of advanced automation more approachable and reliable for power users too. Those who believe that “real automation requires scripting” ignore how much easier (and shareable with others!) complex automations can be because of Shortcuts. In the screenshot below, you can see how I parsed Apple’s intricate .plist structure with just a handful of visual blocks in Shortcuts.

The original .plist file (left) and Shortcuts’ simple way to parse it with visual actions.

But back to Reading List Exporter. After you’ve the selected the Bookmarks.plist file (and you only need to do this once ), you’ll be presented with a menu containing a variety of actions to export your URLs. For instance, I added the ability to batch export all URLs from Reading List to the most popular read-later apps:

These apps are all supported by native actions in Shortcuts. If your favorite app isn’t listed in the shortcut and offers a native action, it should be easy enough for you to modify the Menu and add the app you want to use. Personally, I ran this shortcut and exported all my URLs to Matter as a text, and it worked perfectly.

All my Reading List items exported to Matter.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t add support for Pocket: while Shortcuts does have a Pocket action to save URLs, the action is currently broken in the Shortcuts app and won’t let me authenticate with my Pocket account.

Reading List Exporter also supports these actions:

• Pick a URL from the list and reopen it in Safari;
• Preview all URLs with Quick Look;
• Copy all URLs to the clipboard;
• Save all URLs to a plain text file.

You can also preview the raw list of URLs with Quick Look.

The ability to export a plain text list of all URLs from Reading List is particularly handy if you’re planning to move these URLs to Obsidian or script them in some other way.

Reminders Integration

If you’re a Club MacStories+ or Club Premier member , Reading List Exporter supports the Save Article shortcut I shared here to use Reminders as a read-later app. Specifically, Reading List Exporter will export each URL to Reminders and automatically categorize it as a long read or short read.

My Reading List exported to Reminders.

To export your Reading List items to Reminders, make sure to re-download my ‘Save Article’ shortcut, which I have updated with support for Reading List Exporter. Then, run Reading List Exporter on iOS or iPadOS and, depending on the size of your Reading List database, wait a while as the shortcut needs to parse each URL as an article, get its word count, and save it. Again, due to current limitations of Shortcuts for Monterey, this action isn’t supported on macOS at the moment; you’ll have to run this step on iPhone or iPad .

For more details on my read-later setup in Reminders, check out this lesson of the Automation Academy .

You can read more about Club Premier here , then sign up or upgrade your account using the buttons below:

Download Reading List Exporter

Reading List Exporter is, in my opinion, the perfect example of the new possibilities for user automation unlocked by Shortcuts for Mac. Apple never built actions to extract URLs previously saved to Reading List, but, because of Shortcuts for Mac, that doesn’t matter anymore. With the Finder’s ability to view the entire filesystem and Shortcuts’ built-in dictionary actions, we can now easily and quickly open the Reading List database, find all URLs contained in it, and do whatever we want with them. The combination of Shortcuts’ intuitive design and the freedom of macOS is precisely why I’m so excited about Shortcuts for Mac and its potential to reimagine desktop automation.

You can download Reading List Exporter below and find it in the MacStories Shortcuts Archive .

Export your Safari Reading List items to other apps. This shortcut was designed to run on macOS by reading the contents of Safari’s Bookmarks.plist database. If you’ve already exported this file, the shortcut can run on iOS and iPadOS too.

Get the shortcut here.

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How to save articles with Reading List in Safari for Mac

Read across all your devices

Great articles are just a few clicks away on the Safari browser for Mac. Who has the time to read all of those articles, however? With the built-in 'Reading List' tool on Safari , you can save articles for viewing later. Better still, you can continue reading those articles across other Apple devices, including iPhone and iPad . 

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Using Reading List

In Safari, there are two ways to save an opened webpage article for later reading. First, you can hover over the left side of the 'Smart Search' field (where you'll see the website address), then click the 'One-Step Add' button. You can also click on the Share button at the top right of Safari, then choose 'Add the Reading List'. 

Additionally, you can save a linked page in the Reading List on Safari by going Shift + Click on the keyboard. 

To bring up your Reading List, go into the Safari app on your Mac, then click on the 'Sidebar' button at the top left. Choose the 'Reading List' tab, then click on your article below. 

If you're planning a trip with your Mac and won't have access to an internet connection, you can save Reading List articles for offline use. To do so, click on the 'Sidebar' button at the top left of Safari. Choose the 'Reading List' tab, then right-click and select 'Save Offline'. 

To delete read articles, right-click on the article in the 'Sidebar', then choose 'Remove Item'.

Other devices

Saved articles in Reading List also show on Apple devices signed into the same Apple ID. Changes made on one device (adding/removing content) also occurs on the others. 

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Tips & Tricks

Troubleshooting, how to use reading list on iphone, ipad, & mac.

Are you the kind of person who reads a lot of written content on the web, like our wonderful articles , general news, long-form content, personal blogs, or whatever else? If so, you may be interested in taking advantage of the Reading List feature that Safari has to offer, which is useful when you want to save webpages for reading later.

Reading List works on Mac, iPhone, and iPad, so regardless fo what device you’re using you can access the feature with Safari.

Reading List gives you the option to save web content and come back to it later when you have the time to read it. You can keep adding as many web pages that you want to this list and even read the content when you’re not connected to the internet, provided you’ve saved it offline. Safari’s reading list even syncs with iCloud, so even if you switch between your Apple devices, you’ll have access to all the saved webpages.

Let’s check out using Reading List, first on iOS/iPadOS, and then on MacOS.

How to Use Safari Reading List on iPhone & iPad

The following steps are similar regardless of what iOS/iPadOS version your device is currently running. So, let’s check it out.

Now, you have an idea regarding how you can properly take advantage of Safari Reading List on your iOS/iPadOS device.

How to Use Safari Reading List on Mac

The macOS version of Safari handles the Reading List feature in a very similar way, but the steps to access this feature and add webpages to the list slightly vary.

There you go. At this point, you just need to add a bunch of webpages to your reading list and fill it up.

As long as iCloud is enabled for Safari, all the content stored in your reading list will be synced across all your other devices along with your bookmarks and browsing history. The webpages that you’ve saved offline from the reading list will be accessible even if you’re not connected to the internet.

By default, you’ll need to manually save each webpage for offline use. However, there’s a setting that automatically saves all the reading list items for offline reading. You can find this option by going to Settings -> Safari on your iOS/iPadOS device. Or, if you’re on Mac, you can find it under Safari Preferences.

We’re glad that we could help you get started with the Safari Reading List on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. How many articles or webpages have you added to the Reading List so far? Share your experiences and voice out your opinions in the comments section down below.

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Related articles:

• How to Save Reading Lists Offline on iPhone, iPad & Mac
• How to Clear Safari Reading List on iPhone, iPad, & Mac
• How to Use Reading View in Apple Pages, Numbers, and Keynote
• Use Safari Reading List to Send & Share Links Between Macs & iOS Devices

One Comment

» Comments RSS Feed

It would be nice if three additional features were incorporated. 1) create the ability to change the order in which the pages are displayed so you don’t have to scroll through a lot of pages to find the articles you want to read or re-read. 2) create a folder option so you can place all articles from one source (i.e. OSXDaily) in that folder instead of having a mix of subjects listed in date order (if that is the default) 3) create the ability to change the order in which they are displayed -I.e. date, alphabetically, etc.

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How-To Geek

How to use safari’s "reading list" to save articles for later.

We're fond of any app that will allow you to save a webpage to read later, and there are many ways to do it.

Quick Links

Accessing reading list, adding new stuff to reading list, deleting items, marking items as unread, and clearing your list.

We're fond of any app that will allow you to save a webpage to read later, and there are many ways to do it . If you use an Apple device, however, you don't need anything other than Safari.

Related: The Best Ways to Save Webpages to Read Later

Safari already comes with its own read-it-later feature called Reading List, and it's really handy, particularly if you use different devices within the Apple ecosystem. The nice thing about Reading List is that it automatically syncs everything to iCloud so whether you're on a Mac, iPhone, or iPad, your articles are there waiting for you whenever you have time to get back to them.

Today we want to take a closer look at Reading List, explore its features, and talk about how to make the most of it.

To access the Reading List on Safari for OS X, you want to first show the sidebar and then click the middle icon that resembles a pair of reading glasses. The keyboard shortcut Control+Command+2 also works nicely here.

On an iOS device, tap the book icon on the bottom menu bar.

This will open a new panel where you can again, tap the reading glasses icon to see your Reading List.

As we mentioned at the outset, provided Safari is syncing to iCloud, whatever you save to your Reading List on one Apple device will immediately show up on another.

Adding to your Reading List is really easy. On Safari for OS X, simply surf to the page you want to save, click the share button in the upper-right corner, and then "Add to Reading List" from the resulting dropdown list.

On an iOS device, tap the share icon in the middle along the bottom menubar.

Once the share screen is open, tap "Add to Reading List" and the item will be saved to it.

Now that you know how to perform the very basics, let's move on and discuss other features.

Deleting an items from your Reading List on OS X is simple, just hover over the item and click the small grey "X" that appears in the upper-right corner.

On you iPhone or iPad, swipe the item to the left, then tap "Delete". You can also mark a read item as unread with this method as well.

Take at look at the bottom of the Reading List here and note that you can switch views between all your saved articles and just the unread ones. This can be pretty handy if you've got a lot of stuff squirreled away, can't find what you're looking for, but know you haven't read it yet.

On OS X, you can shift between All and Unread by clicking the buttons at the top of your Reading List.

If you right-click on an item, the resulting context menu will reveal a few items that you may find pretty useful. Aside from the ability to mark an item unread or remove it, there's also the "Clear All Items" option, which will clear your entire reading list.

Obviously, you want to be careful before you perform this action because you may not want to clear everything just yet, which is why a warning dialog will appear to confirm whether you're sure.

One small thing to note before we conclude, if you want to open items from your Reading List on OS X in a new tab, you can hold the the "Command" key while clicking.

Related: How to Sync Contacts, Reminders, and More with iCloud

There are obviously other read-it-later services you can use, but Safari's Reading List does the trick nicely, especially if you don't intend to use another browser.

It's not overly complicated and doesn't allow much in the way of organization such as adding tags or starring an item as a favorite, but if you simply need a way to earmark an item for later reading without bookmarking it, then Reading List is the way to do it.

How to Use The Reading List Feature in Safari

Safari 14 in macOS 11 Big Sur has the Reading List feature. This allows you to save articles you may want to return to at a later point, without needing to keep them as a bookmark.

Reading List in Safari 14 And MacOS 11 Bug Sur

When on a webpage you want to save for later in Safari click on Bookmarks > Add to Reading List . You can also use the keyboard shortcut Shift + CMD + D. The article is now saved to your reading list. To access your reading list, got Bookmarks > Show Bookmarks > click on the tab with a glasses logo . You can also get here by click on the Sidebar logo.

One you’re finished with an article in your Reading List you can mark it as read by opening up the list > two-finger swiping right on the title of the article and clicking > mark as read . If you swipe left , the options are Save Offline, making the article available to read when not connected to the internet, and Remove, which deletes it from your reading list. All those options are also available by right-clicking on an article in the list .

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• Charlotte Henry

How to save articles for offline reading in Safari

Learn how to add web pages to Safari Reading List on iPhone, iPad, or Mac and read them later, even when you do not have an internet connection.

The Reading List feature in Safari is handy for saving web pages that you want to read later. You can save them in Safari on both iOS and Mac so that you can access them anywhere. What makes the Reading List feature even better is that you can read your items even when you have no Wi-Fi or cellular connection.

Add pages to your Safari Reading List

On iphone and ipad.

• Open Safari and visit the page you want to save.
• Tap the Share button from the bottom.
• Choose Add to Reading List in the pop-up window.

Open Safari and go to the page you want to save. Next, click Bookmarks > Add to Reading List from the menu bar. You’ll notice that you have the option to save all of your open tabs if you like with the Add X Open Tabs to Reading List or Add These X Tabs to Reading List feature.

Access your Safari Reading List and read the articles

• Open Safari and tap the Bookmarks button at the bottom.
• Tap the Reading List option from the top, which looks like a pair of glasses.
• With your Reading List open, just tap an article to open it in the current tab. To open it in a new tab, touch and hold the article and pick Open in New Tab .

Open Safari and click the Show sidebar button in your toolbar and the Reading List option, or click View > Show Reading List Sidebar from the menu bar. Select an article to read.

Mark items as read

Access your Reading List and swipe right on an article. Now, tap Mark Read .

The Safari Reading List will keep track of the articles you read. So you can easily tap Show Unread at the bottom of the Reading List screen to see those.

Access your Reading List in the Safari sidebar. Now, swipe right on the trackpad and select Mark Read . You can also right-click on the saved article and choose Mark Read .

Remove an article or clear your list

You can remove articles from your Reading List one at a time or several at once. For one, swipe left and tap Delete .

To remove several, tap Edit on the Reading List screen, mark the ones you want to remove, and then tap Delete at the bottom.

Swipe left or right-click over a Reading List article and choose Remove or Remove Item .

You can also right-click an article and choose to Clear All Items .

Clear Safari’s Reading List cache

Nowadays, webpages are optimized for high-resolution Retina graphics and include other rich media assets so Safari’s Reading List can eat up quite a lot storage space fairly quickly.

Deleting them all on your iPhone or iPad can free up substantial space.

• Open the Settings app and tap General > iPhone/iPad Storage .
• Select Safari from the list of apps.
• Swipe left on Offline Reading List and tap Delete .

This will remove all offline reading items. You will now need an active Wi-Fi or cellular connection to read these articles.

Enable the offline reading feature

• Open your Settings app and select Safari .
• Scroll down to Reading List and turn on the toggle for Automatically Save Offline .

• Open Safari and click Safari > Settings or Preferences from the menu bar.
• Choose the Advanced tab.
• Next to Reading List , check the box for Save articles for offline reading automatically .

Useful Safari tips:

• Tips to customize and personalize Safari on iPhone and iPad
• How to force Dark Mode for any website on Mac or PC
• How to download videos from Safari on iPhone and iPad

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

How do I export my safari 5.1 Reading list?

Does anyone know how to export an iMac's Safari 5.1 reading list to a Macbook Pro (with Safari 5.1 too)?

Thank You in advance

Safari 5.1-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Aug 4, 2011 10:22 AM

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Sep 15, 2011 3:41 AM in response to JIHO 069

i'd also like to know how to

Sep 15, 2011 3:49 AM in response to Asos Illusionist

Sep 15, 2011 3:54 AM in response to Claude Belcourt

Well from what i've searched today i've come out with "something" like a result to our problem.

All Reading List data is stored inside a file called Bookmarks.plist located in ~/Library/Safari

but, it's in binary format.

We can open this with Xcode or if you don't have it by doing some Terminal work

cd ~/Library/Safari/ plutil -convert xml1 Bookmarks.plist

That makes it readable by any text editor.

Inside there there are all bookmarks, but also the ones from Reading List.

Well thats is what i've got now, i'll try overwriting'em on my new MBP tomorrow and post results..

hope i helped..

Sep 15, 2011 4:01 AM in response to Asos Illusionist

What about just moving the Bookmarks.plist file between computers?

I have checked some other posts concerning this issue and some say you cannot sync the reading list at all as it is supossed to be an iCloud feature in the future. Who knows.

Sep 15, 2011 4:02 AM in response to JIHO 069

JIHO 069 wrote: What about just moving the Bookmarks.plist file between computers?.....

Well.. i've gonna try this tomorrow..!! 😀

Jan 13, 2012 7:41 PM in response to JIHO 069

This is an interesting question, but there seems to be no answer yet. :-(

I'd also like to export the reading list in Safari 5,

My reading list is full of too many interesting links ad I want to sort them and save them at another place.

that means "convert the URLs saved in the reading list to normal bookmarks which can be searched"

Is there a way to do that by modifying the plist file which converts the entries of the reading list to a normal bookmarks directory?

Mar 12, 2012 3:13 PM in response to JIHO 069

Hello JIHO 069,

I supposed that the computers you are refering to are not sharing the same iCloud account, otherwise the same reading list would be synchronised in a wizz to both of them. The fastest and cleanest way to export a reading list is actually not exporting it but synchronising it from iCloud to the computer you want to deploy it to. Having said that, the only thing you have got to do is:

1) In the computer where you want to see your reading list, log out from your current iCloud account and log in to the specific reading list's iCloud account.

2) Deselect all sync services but Safari bookmarks.

3) Open Safari and make sure your reading list has synchronised (please notice the pop up query for the merging of your bookmarks)

4) Logout from iCloud and log in back to the original iCloud account if there is one.

It worked for me like a charm. Have a good day.

Mar 13, 2012 2:00 AM in response to Capitán Futuro

Thanks for your detailed answer, Capitán Futuro, but I'm afraid it won't work for me.

Obviously iCloud is the "official" way to do it, but, as you can read at the end of my post, I'm running Safari on Snow Leopard (10.6.8), and it has no support for iCloud.

A shame for me as Lion doesn't support some of my older computers and no way I am upgrading.

Other than that, those machines run smoothly, so i am not buying new ones.

Thanks again!

Oct 24, 2012 10:18 AM in response to JIHO 069

There's a clunky way to do this.

Go to your Library/Safari directory and tar and compress the ReadingListArchive directory and mail it (or ftp if you can) to yourself. Also mail the ReadingList file in same directory. Then go to your target system where you want to see the reading list and copy / extract them to the same path.

I did this but first shut safari down. If you have a reading list you need to preserve in the target system, I would create a special bookmarks folder and add them to that folder before copying the above files as the ReadingList file will be overwritten. It's a binary so cat'ing the two files together probably wont work.

Oct 24, 2012 10:31 AM in response to Marshneiderr

I'm trying this asap!

Dec 10, 2013 6:18 AM in response to JIHO 069

Well, I see a lot of the suggestions in this thread, but....

Since it's now 2013, here's an update on this question that doesn't involve Terminal commands (aka UNIX shell commands)...LOL. Specifically, you may be able to use Google Chrome as an intermediary like so:

1. Try using the latest version of Google Chrome to import FROM Safari on the iMac. Chrome apparently puts the links from one's Reading List into a Chrome bookmarks folder named com.apple.ReadingList

2. Export your Chrome bookmarks to a file on your iMac

(e.g., like so.... https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/96816?hl=en )

3. Move the file to the MacBook Pro, then import it into Safari on that machine using the Safari->File->Import Bookmarks menu option

4. Delete everything you didn't want to import into Safari except the Reading List folder

Dec 10, 2013 6:58 AM in response to Billish

Hi Billish,

Thank You for taking your time to answer my question, but I am afraid there's no need to use Chrome just to import/export Safari bookmarks between my two Macs.

In fact, that was just the solution for me (so far):

1. Stop using the reading list feature. No easy sync, no use for me.

2. Create a specific bookmarks folder called "read later" which I export-import later (let's call it "manual sync" XD).

I know this is a workaround, not a proper solution, as killing the reading list can never be called a solution for exporting the reading list. But it works, and makes my life easier.

Thank You all, guys!

May 17, 2014 2:55 AM in response to Billish

Importing my Safari Reading List into Chrome was a doddle. Good to have a copy. Many thanks.

Jun 26, 2014 1:27 AM in response to JIHO 069

Spoke to many an Apple "genius" and Safari cannot export Reading List.

Chrome can very easily import the Reading List though. In Chrome:

• From the "Customize and Control Google Chrome" menu (button with 3 horizontal lines in far right top corner), choose "Bookmarks" > "Import Bookmarks and Settings"
• In the "Import Bookmarks and Settings..." window, select "Safari" and make sure that the " Favorites/Bookmarks " option is checked, then click "Import"
• Now, in Chrome Bookmarks menu, you should find a new folder called "Imported from Safari" with a subfolder called "com.apple.ReadingList" that's it.

Alternatively you can open the Terminal application on a Mac (search it in Launchpad if you can't find it) and paste this:

/usr/bin/plutil -convert xml1 -o - ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist | grep -E -o '<string>http[s]{0,1}://.*</string>' | grep -v icloud | sed -E 's/<\/{0,1}string>//g'

Hit return and it will list all your Reading List links as text which you can copy and paste elsewhere.

Happy days 😎

Mar 28, 2016 12:14 PM in response to ImprovingApple

Thank you so much to ImprovingApple. I had this carefully selected list of web pages helping to explain CRISPR CAS9, the new and easy to use genetic engineering tool for eliminating and replacing faulty genetic coding through accumulated mutations that is the root cause of many disease such as diabetes, hemophilia, and cystic fibrosis. Your simple to use method utilizing existing browser capabilities enabled me to transfer my reading list into a word file and use my list of about a dozen excellent and easier to understand articles into an informative post that I was able to share with a wide audience of folks interested in science, health, medicine, and new biomedical tools. Without your help, I would have needed to cut and paste these one at a time. I'll be using your method for many other articles too and saving an immense amount of time.

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How to use Safari's Reading List (and why you should)

How many times have you come across a webpage that you wanted to read but didn't have time to do so in the moment? When that happens, you probably either send an email to yourself with the link or maybe add the page as a bookmark.

Both of those methods work but are rather inefficient. And given how busy we all are these days, an effective workflow is crucial. You don't want to waste precious time and you could wind up missing or losing that email.

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Apple's Mac lineup can be confusing as the company transitions from Intel processors to its own Apple Silicon processors. But we're here to help.

What do you do?

If your desktop web browser of choice is Safari, you're in luck. With the help of a handy feature called Reading List which is exactly what it sounds like…a reading list of webpages you've saved for later viewing. 

With the Reading List, you can keep a collection of pages you want to read later or even pages you frequently access but don't want to bother with boookmarking (which is so early 2000s). 

The Reading List is available for both mobile and desktop versions of Safari but I'm only going to demonstrate it on the desktop iteration (because I'm an Android user). I'm going to show you not only how to add webpages to your reading list but how to access it and purge any item.

Adding webpages to the Reading List

1: navigate to the webpage.

The first step is to navigate to the webpage in question. It doesn't matter how you reach the page, just that you open it in Safari.

2: Add the page to the Reading list

Once the page has loaded, hover your cursor over the address bar to reveal a small +. Click that + to add the page to the reading list.

Adding a page to the Reading List is handled from within the Safari address bar.

3: Open the Safari Sidebar

Near the top left corner of the Safari window, you'll a small icon (to the left of the Tab Group drop-down). Click that icon to reveal the Safari sidebar, which contains a handy link to the Reading List.

The Reading List is accessed from the Safari Sidebar.

4: View the Reading List

At the bottom of the Sidebar, you should see a list of four items, one of which is the Reading List. Click Reading List to reveal all entries you've added. You can then click any one of those entries to open a saved web page.

How to remove entries from the Reading List

At some point, you're probably going to find your Reading List has become overcrowded with entries. When that happens, the handy little feature becomes too bloated to be useful. And although there is a search option for the Reading List, if you wind up with too many entries, what was once helpful becomes a hindrance. 

Fortunately, deleting an item from the list is just a matter of right-clicking an entry and selecting Remove Item. Or, if you want to purge your Reading List, click Clear All Items and everything will be deleted.

Deleting entries from the Safari Reading List.

And that's all there is to the Safari Reading List. You really should start making use of this feature to help improve your daily workflow with Apple's native browser. I've been using the Reading List for years and have found it to be quite helpful.

How to use reading mode in every top web browser (and why you should)

The best kindles you can buy: expert tested, the best vpns for iphone and ipad: expert tested.

How to Organize Safari Reading List into Bookmarks

By: Author Alex Lim

Posted on Last updated: December 7, 2023

Home > How to Organize Safari Reading List into Bookmarks

If you use Safari on MacOS Ventura, you might have a lot of websites in your Reading List that you want to revisit later. But what if you want to sort them into different categories or folders? Unfortunately, Safari does not let you drag and drop Reading List items into your Bookmarks. In this article, we will show you a simple workaround to move your Reading List items to a Bookmark folder without opening each website individually.

Table of Contents

What is the Reading List in Safari?

Why move reading list items to bookmarks, how to move reading list items to a bookmark folder, frequently asked questions (faqs), question: how do i delete all reading list items in safari, question: how do i sync my reading list across different devices, question: how do i export my reading list or bookmarks from safari.

The Reading List is a feature in Safari that allows you to save websites for offline reading. You can add any website to your Reading List by clicking on the plus icon next to the address bar, or by using the keyboard shortcut Command+Shift+D. You can access your Reading List by clicking on the sidebar icon on the top left corner of the Safari window, or by using the keyboard shortcut Command+Shift+L. You can also swipe left or right on the trackpad to navigate through your Reading List items.

While the Reading List is a convenient way to save websites for later, it has some limitations. For example, you cannot organize your Reading List items into folders or subfolders. You can only sort them by date or by name. You also cannot sync your Reading List across different devices, unless you use iCloud. If you have a lot of Reading List items, you might find it hard to find the ones you are looking for.

Bookmarks, on the other hand, allow you to create folders and subfolders to categorize your websites. You can also sync your Bookmarks across different devices using iCloud or other services. Bookmarks are more permanent than Reading List items, which can be removed automatically after a certain period of time.

There is no direct way to move Reading List items to a Bookmark folder in Safari. However, there is a simple workaround that you can use to achieve the same result. Here are the steps to follow:

• Create a new Bookmark folder in Safari. You can do this by clicking on the Bookmarks menu and selecting Add Bookmark Folder. You can also right-click on any existing Bookmark folder and select New Folder. Give your new folder a name that describes the category of websites you want to move from your Reading List.
• Open your Reading List in Safari. You can do this by clicking on the sidebar icon on the top left corner of the Safari window, or by using the keyboard shortcut Command+Shift+L.
• Select the Reading List items that you want to move to your new Bookmark folder. You can do this by holding down the Command key and clicking on each item. You can also select multiple items by clicking and dragging your cursor over them.
• Right-click on any of the selected Reading List items and choose Add Bookmarks for [number] Items. This will open a dialog box where you can choose the destination folder for your new Bookmarks. Select your new Bookmark folder and click Add.
• Delete the Reading List items that you have moved to your new Bookmark folder. You can do this by right-clicking on any of the selected Reading List items and choosing Remove Item, or by pressing the Delete key on your keyboard.

Answer: To delete all Reading List items in Safari, you can follow these steps:

• Open your Reading List in Safari.
• Click on the Clear All button on the bottom right corner of the sidebar.
• Confirm that you want to delete all Reading List items by clicking Clear.

Answer: To sync your Reading List across different devices, you need to use iCloud. You can follow these steps:

• On your Mac, open the System Preferences app and click on Apple ID.
• Click on iCloud and make sure Safari is checked under the Apps on this Mac using iCloud section.
• On your other devices, such as iPhone or iPad, open the Settings app and tap on your name.
• Tap on iCloud and make sure Safari is turned on under the Apps using iCloud section.

Answer: To export your Reading List or Bookmarks from Safari, you can follow these steps:

• Open Safari and click on the File menu.
• Select Export Bookmarks. This will save your Reading List and Bookmarks as an HTML file on your computer.
• You can open this file with any web browser or import it to another browser.

In this article, we have shown you how to move your Reading List items to a Bookmark folder in Safari on MacOS Ventura. This can help you organize your websites into different categories and sync them across different devices. We have also answered some frequently asked questions about the Reading List and Bookmarks features in Safari. We hope you found this article helpful and informative. If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment below.

Disclaimer : This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. We are not affiliated with Apple or Safari and do not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided. You should always consult your own IT technical expert before making any changes to your system or software. We are not responsible for any damages or losses that may result from following the instructions in this article.

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Keep your Safari bookmarks, Reading List, and tabs up to date with iCloud

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Access the same bookmarks, Reading List, and tabs on all your devices

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Because your information is in the cloud, changes you make on one device—like bookmarking a new website, removing an item from your Reading List, or opening a new tab—automatically appear on all your devices. You see the most up-to-date version of your bookmarks, Reading List, Tab Groups, and open browser tabs, no matter where you access them.

Restore your bookmarks on all your devices

Your bookmarks are archived automatically. You can use iCloud.com to restore an archived version on all your devices if you ever need to.

Collaborate on Tab Groups

You can collaborate on Tab Groups with friends and family who use iCloud. When collaborators add or remove a tab from the group, everyone sees those changes in real time.

Get started

See Set up iCloud for Safari on all your devices .

• Model training in Red Hat OpenShift AI

This is the fourth episode of our series that dives into training and deploying computer vision models at the edge . And I have some good news: we're already past the halfway point. Have a look at the series outline and the remainder of the fascicles:

• How to install single node OpenShift on AWS
• How to install single node OpenShift on bare metal
• Red Hat OpenShift AI installation and set up
• Prepare and label custom datasets with Label Studio
• Deploy computer vision applications at the edge with MicroShift 

Introduction

Training artificial intelligence (AI) models is a pivotal process in the development of AI systems, demanding significant time and resources. The importance of this training phase cannot be overstated, as it is during this stage that the model learns to recognize patterns, make predictions, and perform tasks based on the provided data. 

Red Hat OpenShift AI provides a robust platform for conducting AI model training. This platform empowers us to efficiently perform model development iterations, fine-tune parameters, and validate performance, ultimately facilitating the creation of high-quality AI solutions. We will use this platform to train our YOLO algorithm based on previously processed data. 

Info alert: Note

Red Hat OpenShift AI deployment on single node OpenShift is currently not officially supported. Refer to the OpenShift AI official  documentation to get more information about supported platforms and configurations.

For this demo, we have decided to develop a real-time detection system that will provide efficient and accurate animal locations and some statistics within video sequences. In this article, we are going to show you the complete process for training the model based on a dataset of animal images previously labeled. It is worth mentioning that the  original set of images and labels has been prepared in advance and  converted to YOLO format to simplify the explanation. 

However, if you want to build a demo to detect a custom set of objects, don't worry. We show you how to label your own image dataset in the article Prepare and label custom datasets with Label Studio . Then you will only have to replace the animals dataset with your custom one.

Project set up

Once you are logged in the OpenShift AI dashboard, the first step is to create the project where all of the resources related to our project will live. It is considered a good practice to create separate projects each time to ensure component isolation and better access control. Here you have the steps to create the new project: 

• On the left menu in the dashboard, navigate to the  Data Science Projects tab.
• Click the  Create data science project button.
• There you can type your preferred project name. In my case, it will be  safari .
• Finally, click  Create . 

That’s how easy it is to create the project namespace. This is where all the resources tailored to this demo will be deployed.

Create workbench

Now that we have our newly created  safari project, we can configure our workbench:

• Click  Create workbench .
• Once on the workbench configuration page, complete the fields to match the following specifications:
• Name :  safari (insert any preferred name).
• Image selection :  PyTorch .
• Version selection :  2023.2 (recommended).
• Container size :  Medium (this will depend on your node resources; the more, the better).
• Accelerator :  NVIDIA GPU . 
• Number of accelerators :  2 . (In this case, our node has 2 NVIDIA GPU cards, but you will need to select the number that applies to your environment.)
• Persistent storage size :  80 GiB (we can always extend it later if needed).
• Once you have completed the form, click  Create workbench . You will be redirected to the project dashboard, where the workbench is starting. It could take a couple of minutes to pull the image before changing the status to Running. Your project should look similar to Figure 1.

• Now you can access the Workbench Interface by clicking  Open and logging in using your kubeadmin credentials.

That's it! Our workbench is ready and the next step will be to deploy the Notebook containing the training instructions. Now, jump to the model training section.

Model training

The moment to directly work with the AI model has arrived. When you open your workbench, you will be directed to a Jupyter environment, a versatile computational platform used for interactive computing, data analysis, and scientific research. It provides a web-based interface that allows users to create files with code in multiple programming languages, as shown in Figure 2.

Notebooks in Jupyter serve as interactive computing documents that combine live code, visualizations, explanatory text, and multimedia elements in a single interface, allowing users to execute code blocks individually, visualize results immediately, and document their processes in real-time. We can always spin up a new Python Notebook and start programming right from scratch, but OpenShift AI also makes it possible to import Git repositories and visualize the dataset and Notebooks directly from the Jupyter interface. 

On the left side of the screen, you should see the Git icon (shown in Figure 3).

Click  Clone a Repository and paste the Safari GitHub repository URL :  https://github.com/OpenShiftDemos/safari-demo

After a few moments, you should see the  safari-demo directory cloned in your Jupyter environment. Let me briefly explain the repo folder architecture:

• notebooks : Stores different notebooks. We will use:  Safari_YOLOv8.ipynb .
• dataset : Contains the images and annotations for the animal images.
• weights : Stores the weights resulting from the training. You can use them in case you don’t want to train the model on your own. 

If you are trying to build your own model, you can use the notebook in the  safari-demo as a reference. Remember to adapt the following steps to point out the model to your custom dataset.

Navigate to  safari-demo  > notebooks  > Safari_YOLOv8.ipynb to open the   notebook. The file contains code cells that can be run by clicking the  Play button at the top. At this point, you can proceed with the training by reading through the notebook or via this article, as we will be reviewing some of the most important code cells.

First of all, we are going to clone the official  YOLO repository and install some of the package dependencies:

Next, verify that the images and labels for the training are in the right path. If you are using your own dataset, from now on, you will have to replace this information with the path where your dataset images are stored.

The output will show us the training, test, and validation folders with the images and labels subfolders. Also, the  data.yaml file will be listed. Let me show you the information this file contains:

You will need to create a similar file if you are using a custom dataset, modifying the number of classes, labels list, and the route to your images. 

As you can see, this is the file that YOLO uses as a reference to know where the training and validation folders are located. We also need to let it know how many classes we have. In our case, there are  80 different animals. Next comes the list of the class names in order. This is important when labeling the dataset images. Figure 4 shows an example.

Each line in the text file corresponds to a boundary box. The first number on each line corresponds to the class name. In this example,  0 means  Zidane , but in our model,  0=Hippopotamus , as shown in the  data.yaml .

Now that we know the basics, it’s time to train the model. As you can see below, the code is quite simple. First, we load a pretrained model that the YOLO Ultralytics team provides. These weights will be used as a starting point for the training with the new animal data. Next, we just need to call the  train function and fill in a couple of parameters:

• data : the path to our  data.yaml file.
• epoch : maximum number of iterations during the training.
• imgsz : size of the images used for the training.
• batch : number of images used during each training iteration.

Here starts the training of the YOLOv8 model using our dataset. In the first line of the output shown when running the cell, you should spot your GPU card, which is used to speed up the process. In my case, it’s the  Tesla M60 GPU card:

Wait until the training process finishes. This will be done automatically when either the function reaches the iteration number specified in the  epoch parameter or if at some point there is no significant accuracy improvement between iterations. The training time will depend on different factors, including the size of the images and the GPU used. When finished, the weights file will be automatically saved in the following folder:

At this point, our recently trained model should be able to detect animals on images. Let's try it out by passing a sample image. We just need to load our weights file to the model and specify the path to the image used as an example. 

If you want to save some time and skip the training process, you can use the weights file provided in the Git repository ( safari-demo > weights > best.pt ). Modify the paths to point to the file if needed.

Here you have the results (Figure 5):

Our brown bear is detected correctly. Now that we know that our model is working, we just need to save the model in onnx format so that we can use it in a container image later:

The file is saved in the following folder. Navigate to the directory and download it to your computer. We will use it later to be part of our Safari application:

That’s all we need for the training. We are ready to jump to the latest episode: the model deployment in Red Hat build of MicroShift.

In this tutorial, you used Red Hat OpenShift AI to train a YOLO v8 model. Our exploration has not only delved into the intricacies of object detection but also showcased the integration of computer vision cutting-edge technology with the robust OpenShift platform. 

As we bid farewell to this series, our final destination awaits in the next article, where we will witness the deployment of our trained model onto MicroShift. Join us in the grand finale!

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