BookMacster
2.9.19
BookMacster
2.9.19Organize and manage bookmarks, sync across browsers.
Overview
BookMacster is a bookmarks manager for your Mac which plays nicely with iCloud Safari syncing, Firefox Sync, Sign In to Chrome, and Opera Sync. (Ours are the only non-Apple apps which can modify Safari bookmarks without corrupting iCloud data.) It can be used in one of three ways, or all three:
- Manage Browser Bookmarks. Add alphabetizing and tagging. Verify, fix dupes, consolidate.
- Cross-Browser Syncing. Sync bookmarks of Firefox, Chrome, Opera and more among all your devices.
- Directly. Keep your bookmarks in one central store, accessible within web browsers.
Features
- Compatible with iCloud Safari syncing, Firefox Sync, Google Chrome's Sign In. Bookmarks added to these apps on your Mac will show up in these apps on iOS or Andriod devices.
- Import/export with Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, iCab, Roccat, Pinboard, Diigo, and OmniWeb.
- Easily organize with tags, hierarchy, or both.
- Verifies bookmarks, fixes redirects, duplicates, can upgrade insecure bookmarks and remove URL cruft.
- Sort (alphabetize) automatically when bookmarks are changed. You control which folders you want to be sorted or not sorted, how to sort them.
- Supports multiple user profiles in Firefox and Google Chrome.
- Scriptable to collect new bookmarks from NetNewsWire or similar apps.
What's new in BookMacster
Version 2.9.19:
- Fixed a bug which could cause, when syncing multiple browsers, in some cases, changes from one browser to be missed and overwritten if changes are made in a second browser while those first changes are being synced. (Last-imported hashes were not always truly being forgotten when the sync operation was aborted and re-staged.)
- Now prompts user to export if syncing is ready when an Import or Export checkbox of a browser/client is switched ON.
- Fixed encoding of non-ASCII characters in HTML (.html file) exports. (Bookmark and folder names are now exported with only the five mandatory HTML control characters encoded, which removes a bug exporting characters in the upper Unicode planes.)
- In the Inspector window now, the Name field is taller so that it can show three lines instead of one without scrolling. (It still scrolls to show unlimited lines.)
- Patched an omission which theoretically could cause .bmco document changes from another Mac to be missed when syncing. (BkmxAgent now watches documents’ -shm and -wal files too.)
- Now exports to Chrome-ish browsers bookmarks whose URL begins with "javascript:" .
- Import/Export with Opera has been improved to support Opera installations which, for some reason, present bookmarks in a different format (JSON root has three children instead of the usual six).
- Errors in decoding Opera bookmarks (164874, 174869, 174875, 174876, 174879) now contain additional information.
Join over 500,000 subscribers.
Subscribe for our newsletter with best Mac offers from MacUpdate.
BookMacster Screenshots
More from Internet Utilities
myTumblrNetScanAnti-SocialCloudyCoccinellidaMariaGoodies: Sandvox DesignsReal Mac Genius RSS Feed$22.95
App requirements:
- Intel 64
- OS X 10.10.0 or later
Category:
Developer Website:
Install with MacUpdateDownloaded & Installed 84,934 times
66 BookMacster Reviews
See allRate this app:
Most helpful
We publish three other bookmarks management applications, tailored to specific use cases. Users who only want syncing among the built-in bookmarks of web browsers (Firefox, Safari, Chrome, etc.) should choose Synkmark. The user interface of Synkmark is simpler than BookMacster, because it supports only this type of syncing.
Here is what you'll experience when setting up Synkmark:
• From a list of installed web browsers found, switch on checkboxes to indicate which you want synced.
• Click "Done". Synkmark automatically imports and de-duplicates from the selected browsers.
• Follow the prompt to install our web browser extension if syncing Firefox, Chrome, Opera or Vivaldi. Browsers require your permission for this nowadays.
• A Help page appears, explaining what has already been done, and the next steps.
• Reorganize your bookmarks as desired.
• Click on "Syncing".
• As prompted, click "Export". This sends your organized bookmarks to your selected browsers.
• Quit Synkmark. Automatic syncing, in the background, now begins.
Configuring to sync with BookMacster is similar, but because BookMacster supports additional use cases, there are some additional steps, and additional cognitive overhead. Because "less is more", BookMacster is not recommended for most users. To select the appropriate app, please search for "selection guide site:sheepsystems.com".
Although there are apps which mess up bookmarks (usually by carelessly overwriting Safari's bookmarks file), our apps do not. The Help page which appears during initial configuration recommends one additional step: clearing out all browsers' bookmarks before your first export. This is to remove any pre-existing corruption.
Ah, Sync Loops. Although rare, they can ruin your day, so yes we warn users. A Sync Loop occurs if you begin syncing with one of our apps between a pair of browser installations whose bookmarks are also being synced by some other app. The two apps will continuously step on one another's work. For a picture, please search "Sync Loop site:sheepsystems.com". Our apps detect when your bookmarks are probably being damaged by a Sync Loop, stop syncing and warn you. Although we would like to warn you as soon as a Sync Loop is created, security restrictions, the fragility of reverse engineering, and lack of access to other devices prevent us from reliably knowing what you have configured in other apps.
Our apps do not ask which browsers you have installed. They are smart enough to determine that.
Including beta releases, we have built and published new versions of BookMacster 290 times since 2009; four in the last three months.
Synkmark makes syncing bookmarks among different browsers as simple and reliable as practical.
The upgrade pricing should work automatically, based on a prior installation. For users who don't have version 1 installed any more, or for any other issues, send a email to sales@sheepsystems.com and we shall send you a coupon code.
My personal outlook regarding the upgrade cost is that I have had a license for vers. 1.x for many years and have enjoyed great support and a lot of free updates during that time. Paying a relatively small upgrade cost now for such a fantastic bookmark manager is well worth it to me.
Support has always been fast and terrific on the few occasions I have requested assistance. The assistance I requested also had nothing to do with the functioning of BookMacster. I have never once had to request support because BookMacster failed its job.
BookMacster also "just works." For me it has been seamless and invisible in syncing my bookmarks between multiple browsers and is among the first few applications that are a must-install for me in a new setup.
You may be aware that we didn't write BookMacster's Check for Update feature; it's an open-source package called Sparkle which has been used by probably thousands of non-Mac-App-Store apps, big and small, for the last ten years. So to be honest with you, I never really studied how it works in this regard.
But I'm glad you noticed the handy "Save, Export disabled" indicator in the upper right corner of the window! I added that on Saturday after reading the comment by you and JamesHarrisPhoto, just before pushing the final version 2.0.2 out the door. If you have a demo license it indicates "Fully functioning demo". Pretty neat idea, which I can say without bragging because I stole it from Cocoatech's Path Finder app :))
So, the behavior is baked into Sparkle and baked into Version 1, so the only way I could change this now would be to turn off the RSS update feed. But, in my view, that would cause more serious trouble for users whose Firefox extensions will stop working after this week. The Update News explains how to revert to Version 1, for anyone that wants to!
I've made a note to fork Sparkle and add the Update News to that window if and when we ever do a version 3, but since it took six years to get to version 2, we've got plenty of time :)
Thank you, Broz, for being persistent with this issue.