How to Import Firefox Bookmarks into Safari 4 Beta in Windows

hot to import firefox bookmarks in safari 4 beta in windowsWhile Firefox is my mainstay browser, I pretty much use all current browsers from time to time both to test my various websites for compatibility and to keep current with what’s new in the browser wars.

I recently installed the Safari 4 beta. In earlier versions of Safari, there was always an option to import bookmarks from IE or Firefox during the installation process. Not-so with the Safari 4 beta install.

Note: I purposely uninstalled Safari 3 before installing Safari 4. My hope was to get a fresh import of my most current Firefox bookmarks in the process. That didn’t work.

I use xmarks (formerly foxmarks)  to synchronize my bookmarks between computers. While there is an xmarks beta client for use on the Mac, so far there is none for the PC.

Here’s the easiest way I could find to import Firefox bookmarks into the Safari 4 beta:

In Firefox:

  • Click on Bookmarks
  • Click on ‘Organize Bookmarks’ (Ctrl-Shift-B)
  • Click on ‘Export HTML…’ under the ‘Import and Backup’ pull-down menu

export bookmarks in firefox

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Synchronize Firefox 3 Bookmarks with foxmarks

foxmarks logo

[July 7, 2008 Update: I discuss the foxmarks beta version below. Foxmarks is now out of beta and available as a normal add-on for Firefox 3.  You can download it here.]

[May 2009 Update: Foxmarks is now named xmarks and can be downloaded here.]

Last year I became an enthusiastic user of Google Browser Sync (GBS). It effortlessly synced my Firefox bookmarks, passwords, browsing history and cookies across my several desktop and laptop computers.

When I tested Firefox 3, beta 4 in April I was saddened to discover that GBS didn’t work with Firefox 3. Mozilla has completely changed how the bookmarking system works in Firefox. As far as I can tell, Google has not announced plans to update GBS despite numerous bloggers and forum participants beseeching Google to do so (see for example here and here).
[July 7 Update: Google announced several weeks ago that it will no longer provide GBS for Firefox.]

Weave Didn’t Work for Me

So I downloaded Mozilla’s newest beta software, Weave, that promised to synchronize my bookmarks (latest version 0.1.28 available here – ars technica setup instructions here – poorly reviewed here – but working for this guy and this blogger). Despite hours of frustration I couldn’t get it to work – at all.

Lastly, I looked to foxmarks but, at the time, the Firefox 3 version was in private beta only.

So, without a means to synchronize my bookmarks and given the Firefox 3 ‘Open in Tabs’ Overwrite Bug that I previously wrote about, I fell back (tail between my legs) to using Firefox 2 – memory leaks and all.

Firefox 3 logo With the release of Firefox 3, RC1 I couldn’t wait any longer. I installed it expecting to use Firefox, for a time, without synchronized bookmarks – quite dispiriting given how I’ve become reliant on it for cross-system synchronization.

foxmarks for Firefox 3 Now Available in Public Beta

After installing Firefox 3, RC1 [Update: download current version here] I was happy to discover that a public beta for the Firefox 3 version of foxmarks was now underway. I installed it on my computers and it worked. It continues to work without incident across all of my Visa x64 and XP PCs.

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