How Do You Match Bookmarks With Browsers? Bookit!

I’m a glutton for punishment. I like Safari. I use it. I like Firefox and use that, too. Sometimes I try out OmniWeb, and I use Mozilla and MSIE to check web pages. Sometimes I tool around in the lovely Camino. But I want ONE set of bookmarks. Not 5 or 6.

Guess what? Now you can have one set of bookmarks and keep the set coordinated between all your browsers on your Mac.

I ran across a nifty Mac application called “Bookit.” What it does is simple on the surface, though there’s lots of work going on under the hood.

The problem has to do with bookmarks in your browser and keeping the bookmarks coordinated if you use multiple browsers. That’s the case for most Mac users as Safari doesn’t always handle web pages as well as, say, Firefox or OmniWeb.

iSync does a nice job of keeping bookmarks coordinated between multiple Macs. But that assumes you’re using Safari as the main browser and iSync doesn’t sync bookmarks with the other browsers.

"Bookit" to the rescue. Here’s what Everyday Software says about this cool little application:

“Using Bookit you’ll no longer have to run bookmark manager applications to have the same bookmarks between all of your browsers. Bookit reads the bookmarks you have and then lets you organize the bookmarks you may not have in all your browsers.

Bookit then creates new bookmark files for the browsers you have selected. Bookit also is a complete organizational tool, while customizing your bookmarks you may: add bookmarks, add folders, add dividers, and move everything anywhere.

Bookit 2 has been completely rewritten specifically for Mac OS X, meaning you get the best experience possible.”

Here’s how it works.

Let’s say you use Safari as your primary browser so you keep most of your bookmarks there. Sometimes you use Firefox or Camino or MSIE and you pick up a few web site bookmarks using those browsers.

How do you keep the bookmarks all coordinated.

Use Bookit and designate Safari as the “base” browser. Bookit then scans all the other browser’s bookmarks and shows you the differences in a list.

From the list you can move which, or all, bookmarks into Safari. That’s simple enough. Here’s the fun part.

Then you can “synchronize” the updated Safari bookmark list to ALL your other browsers. One click.

That is waaaaaaay cool. All total, it’s just a few clicks to keep all the bookmarks in all the browsers coordinated. On the surface it looks remarkably easy. Under the hood is where the action is.

Browsers don’t store their bookmarks in the same format or in the same places on your Mac, so Bookit has to find the bookmarks, read them, check for differences, show you the differences list, then synchronize them.

That’s not easy, but it’s a very simple process with Bookit.

OK, which browsers will synchronize with Bookit? Safari, of course. Camino, iCab, MSIE, Firefox, Mozilla, OmniWeb, and Opera.

Is that sufficient? Oh, love Firefox? Safari doesn’t have to be the “base” browser for bookmarks. You can choose.

So far, Bookit works remarkably well. It’s managed to find a few bookmarks in other browsers that I’d forgotten about but wanted to keep. Every now and then it finds a link to something I didn’t link to. One click and it goes away.

Bookit is a 4 Star Mac application on MacUpdate. Complaints usually come from users who forget that Bookit is a three step process.

Step 1 - set your “base” browsers bookmarks (other browsers will sync to this)

Step 2 - move odd bookmarks from other browsers to the base browser

Step 3 - sync the “base” browser bookmarks to the other browsers

It works great. Click Here for the MacUpdate reviews on Bookit’s 4 Stars, and download.

Do you use more than one browser? How do you manage bookmarks between the browsers? Share your knowledge with other Mac users and click the Comments link below.

For those of us who use MSIE or Firefox on Windows, I’d like to see an “export function” so we can transfer bookmarks to the Windows side of the fence.

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