Sometimes you may experience that iPhone 18 Pro Safari bookmarks are not syncing across devices. If you are using iCloud, your Safari bookmarks and your Reading List will stay up to date across all your Apple devices. For example, if you add a bookmark to your bookmarks (e.g., Favorites list) on your iPhone 18 Pro or iPhone 18 Pro Max, your Favorites list on your Mac will also be automatically updated to reflect the change. If you are having issues using iCloud bookmarks or Reading List, this article can help. I list several steps you can try in order to fix your iPhone 18 Pro bookmark syncing issue.
First things to check
Let’s make sure we cover the basics.
- Ensure that there are no iCloud outages. Go to the Apple System Status page and find the “iCloud Bookmarks & Tabs” option and check if there are any issues.
- On your devices (iPhone, iPad or Mac), check whether the date and time settings on your device are correct:
- iPhone: Settings > General > Date & Time.
- Mac: Apple menu > System Settings > General > Date & Time.
- Make sure that you are using the same Apple account on all of your devices.
- iCloud uses the Internet to work, thus if you have no Internet, Safari bookmarks will not sync.
- Make sure that your device is up to date:
- iPhone: Settings > General > Software Update.
- Mac: Apple menu > System Settings > General > Software Update.
- Ensure that you set up iCloud for Safari on all of your devices.
- iPhone: Settings > [your name] > iCloud > See All and ensure that Safari is enabled.
- Mac: Apple menu > System Settings > [your name] > iCloud > See All and ensure that Safari is selected.
- Restart your device(s) to see if Safari is showing bookmarks now.
- Press and hold either volume button and the side button until the power-off slider appears.
- Drag the slider, then wait 30 seconds for your device to turn off.
- To turn your device back on, press and hold the side button (on the right side of your iPhone) until you see the Apple logo.
Turn iCloud for Safari off, then on again
You can turn iCloud for Safari off and on. This will force iCloud to re-sync and may fix this problem. I was having this problem too, and this is what worked for me. Here is how:
iPhone
- Go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > See All.
- Scroll down a little and find Safari.
- Toggle the switch off.
- Wait a few minutes. Apple’s instruction is to turn Safari off, wait a few minutes, and then turn it back on again.
- Then restart your iPhone.
- Again go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > See All and turn on Safari.
- That’s it. Your Safari bookmarks will slowly appear as iCloud syncs data.
Mac
- Choose Apple menu, click System Settings, click your name, then click iCloud. Check that you turned on Safari.
- If Safari is already turned on, turn it off, wait a few minutes, and then turn it back on again.
- Restart your Mac. On your Mac, choose Apple menu > Restart.
Now, iCloud Safari bookmarks should start working again.
If bookmarks go missing after turning Safari off and on
If some bookmarks did not come back, you may be able to recover them. Apple automatically archives earlier versions of your Safari bookmarks in iCloud. Go to icloud.com/recovery and sign in, then select Restore Bookmarks and select Restore next to the version you want. Apple notes that your current version is archived first, so you can change your mind, and that you should wait until the restore finishes before changing any bookmarks, because changes made during the restore are not saved.
In this article, I explained how you can fix the Safari bookmark syncing problem. I was having this issue too, and when I turned off, then on again iCloud for Safari in the iCloud settings, the problem was resolved. I hope the same fix works for you too.
