Help! Accidentally Deleted my Bookmarks Folder
 

Hi guys,

I have like a Zillions Bookmarks on Bookmark Folder on Safari 4. I accidentally deleted the folder right up on the top bar when i was trying to move it and i very much need it to recover it. It is very important because i have tons of Bookmarks on that Top Folder from months and months of work. I cannot search it again one by one neither.

I have Mac OS X Tiger and no Time Machine. I have Bookdog, a nice app to Organize Bookmarks alphabetically. I am running Stellar Phoenix recovery tool now and crossing my fingers...:confused:

I have not restarted my Mac so far. Is there any Temporary place where delete files go? (there is nothing in the trash can, that is for sure).

I have searched my User/Library/Cache/Safari and there is a file named

Bookmarks_saved_by_sbc.plist

which is from before the delete moment. I believe i saved this file with Bookdog. Can that file have my deleted Bookmarks?


Please send some help or ideas?

Cheers,

Sebastian

Your bookmarks are stored in User/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist.

If you haven't quit Safari, I would try duplicating that file and opening it in a text editor to see if the bookmarks you hope to recover are still listed.

If you've already quit Safari, the changes have most certainly been written to the file. I'm unfamiliar with Bookdog, so I can't say if it offers any ways that might help you recover your lost data.

Thanks for the Fast reply. I have 2 different .plist files

Bookmarks_saved_by_sbc.plist

and

Bookmarks.plist

I tried to open them with a .plist reader (PlistEdit Pro)....but i cannot understand a bit.



There´s may be some light at the end of the tunnel...since some familiar names of the Bookmarks appears in the .PLIST file. I hope they still have some data in it.

But now i guess i should try to convert the .plist file into .html or .xml. Is that right? Am i going in the right track with this?

Cheers,

S

Open the files with a text editor, not a plist editor. Simple and free examples would be TextEdit (already on your Mac) or TextWrangler (available for free).

The simple goal here is to save the information, even if it just means you copy and paste the information into a new text file so you can re-create the bookmarks in Safari.

I'm not certain what the file named Bookmarks_saved_by_sbc.plist is about or why it's there. It's possible that this is a file created by BookDog or some other application.

Either way, check both of those files with a text editor. This is the approach you should take, not anything like trying to convert the plist files to some other format like html or xml.

Ok...i am trying TextWrangler, very fine App.

I think the info is somehow here...I think Bookdog saved my life, before i accidentally deleted my bookmarks i save a copy (i guess) that i why

Bookmarks_saved_by_sbc.plist has 200 kb and Bookmarks.plist only 4 kb.


Now...Do you know now how can re-create the bookmarks in Safari? I just renamed the Bookmarks_saved_by_sbc.plist into Bookmarks.plist

and think it has to work right if i put it in ~/Library/Safari/ folder. I am kind of scare of closing Safari and erasing some temp file and not making it able to recover somehow.

I'm not certain how you could easily re-create your bookmarks by editing the file. My guess is you would have to examine to code structure of the bookmarks file to properly add the lost bookmarks.

If I were in your position, here's what I would do. First, use the Finder to make a copy of the critical file(s). Simply navigate to them, select them, then use the File menu to select Duplicate. Now, if the key information is in those files you've got a backup even if Safari crashes or some other catastrophe occurs.

As for re-creating bookmarks, I tested the following approach using TextEdit, so this method should work for you if my instructions are clear. You could use TextWrangler if you prefer, so adjust the wording here as needed.

1. Copy the links from within the bookmark plist file(s) to a blank document in TextEdit. If there is any code around the link, you don't want it, just the site address (www.SomeSite.com). We're just trying to get the key information preserved in a clean state somewhere. This also means each URL should be on its own line, like this:
   
   www.SiteOne.com
   www.SiteTwo.com
   
2. Once you have all the links in a text file somewhere, save it just to be safe. Now, go to Safari and use the Bookmarks menu to select Show All Bookmarks.
   
3. From that same menu, select Add Bookmark Folder. Name it whatever you want.
   
4. Go back to the TextEdit file and use the Edit menu to choose Select All. Use the mouse to click on the selection, but then pause for a moment (1-2 seconds). Now drag the selection to the new bookmark folder you created in Step 4.

All your bookmarks should be in that folder, and you could then use Bookdog to re-create the organization it provided before. Likewise, you can move the bookmark folder to whatever location you want.

This is all sort of difficult to explain in words, so give a shout if you have any questions.

Hi NaOH, thanks for a very useful information! I am going to try it now your steps to see how it works.

Cheers,

Sebastian

Great News!!!

i did rename the Bookmarks_saved_by_sbc.plist file which had 200 kb to Bookmarks.plist and place in the ~/Library/Safari/ folder. That way i was able to restore my Bookmarks List completly.

Very glad i did not have to do it by hand. I had 43,510 Bookmarks (not kidding!) in that Folder. I urgently need to find an App. that automatically make regular Bookmark Backups.

Thanks for a very good help,

Cheers,

Sebastian

mmmm....Sorry too happy too soon. The Bookmarks_saved_by_sbc.plist even tough is supposed to be right it is old. I was confussed by the number 43,510 Bookmarks which supposed to be right.

Now i will have to try something else...too bad.

Do you not backup your entire user account?

If not, then you must.

With Time Machine, you could restore the file from the last time it was modified.

Not to say that Time Machine is a bad idea, but the poster is running Tiger so Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper would be better in this case, unless he wants to also upgrade his OS.

right NaOH, i am using Tiger and no Time Machine as i said earlier in the post. Thanks for the info on Carbon Copy. I will search for it now.

But even tough back up is always a good idea, there is a serious design issue with Safari. How in hell it does not ask you "Are you sure you want to delete your Bookmarks?". It is a common mistake bookmarks are always very close together in Safari, specially in the top bar.

I will keep searching if there is some way to solve the "deleted bookmark" issue. I have a .plist which i supposed i could have some useful info in it.

Cheers,

The big bummer in your case is that if you'd used the Undo command (in the Edit menu or by using Command-Z) your mistake would have been immediately fixed. That's true in Safari 4 under 10.5, but I assume it would still work in Tiger.

For Carbon Copy Cloner (or any other backup system), you'll need an external hard drive. The other approach is to look into services like Mozy.

NaOH thanks for info! Do you know how Data Rescue II works? is it better than Carbon Copy? I will try the freeware first, but i guess since i reboot Safari i do not think i can get my old Bookmarks back.

Data Rescue can recover deleted files. I'm not sure how well it works for overwritten files (which is what you're dealing with). You may as well download it and see if it can help. You can check it out without paying, so there's no harm or risk here.

Did you back up those plist files like we talked about yesterday? If so, and the data was in them, then we should be able to figure something out here.

Yes i did back up the .plist files. However it is a bit complicated how to "read or translate" the info or the possible Bookmarks one by one in that .plist file. Remember there are more than 43,500 links involved.

Here is a sample.


Cheers,

S

If it's information you're comfortable sharing, send me the plist file via private message. That will make it much easier for me to help with reducing the file to the data you want.

My mistake. The private message system doesn't allow attachments. If you're comfortable sharing the information, send me a private message with your e-mail, then I can give you my address so you can send me the plist file.

NaOH, private message sent...

...it does, now.
 

Not that this helps any, but I thought I'd just thrown in the fact that in Safari 4 running under Snow Leopard it does ask you the exact question you mentioned when you try to drag a folder off of the Bookmarks bar - not sure if that's an OS change, or if it's just the build of Safari. I'm running Version 4.0.3 (6531.9)

That is the only way I know of that Safari will ask you. If you right click on one in the Bookmark Bar and select Delete, the user won't be prompted. Likewise, when viewing all of one's bookmarks, simply pressing the Delete key on the keyboard will remove the bookmark or folder without prompting.

Unfortunately, if you didn't have any backups, that data is probably gone for good. File recovery software probably won't help, though it can't hurt to try. It's possible that Safari created a new Bookmarks.plist file in a temporary folder, wrote the changes to it, then deleted the old one and replaced it with the new one. (I'm not sure whether it would use that technique internally, or would just open the file, write the changes to it and then close it again.) If it does work that way, the old one may still be present and not overwritten. I wouldn't say that's likely, though. Try it with Data Rescue and see what you get.

This should be your cue to start backing up ASAP, before you lose something more important!

Since the "oops" happened back in 2009 I think we can assume that uzapuca has either recovered his bookmarks or doesn't care anymore. He's also bought a new iMac in the past 4 years, upgraded from Tiger to Lion, and set up Time Machine (maybe as a result of this).

(edit: rinekathes has been rather busy raising the dead. )