How to delete bookmarks on Mac from all browsers
16.8K views
5 min read
Internet is a vast space with a practically unlimited amount of amazing websites and engaging content. When you discover something new online that you want to come back to later, the best way to make sure you don’t forget about it is saving that webpage as a bookmark in your browser.
Bookmarking is a simple way to build your own online universe. People bookmark the news websites they go to, blogs they read, music videos they want to watch, or even documents they need to work on. That way, you don’t have to remember actual URLs and domain names, let alone type some complicated path into your browser’s address bar.
In fact, saving bookmarks is so popular that it’s now increasingly becoming a problem to find the correct bookmark! We save something to refer to later and then never delete it, which over time results in a mess of bookmarks we don’t even need.
This is where knowing how to remove a bookmark on Mac comes handy. So let’s explore that issue in a quick step-by-step guide.
How to delete bookmarks in any browser
Bookmarks are associated with your specific browser. So it’s possible to have a completely different set of bookmarks in Safari and Firefox, for example.
The first step to bookmark organization is to bundle them into folders (e.g. recipes). This is a highly recommended practice. Still, after a month or so, it’s likely that your bookmarks manager will be overfilled with things you don’t need anymore. Luckily the process of deleting them is very easy — you just have to remember to do it semi-regularly to keep things tidy.
Besides bookmarks, most browsers also have Favorites, which are the highlights of the highlights and are often even more accessible. We’ll mention how to delete Favorites on MacBook as well.
Since bookmarks are browser-specific, the steps to remove them vary slightly, so it’s worth considering the process on Safari, Google Chrome, and Firefox separately. Just remember that deleting bookmarks in one doesn’t mean they will be deleted from another. You have to go through the similar process in each browser.
- How to remove bookmarks from Safari
- How to delete bookmarks in Chrome
- How to clear bookmarks in Firefox
- How to remove all your bookmarks
Before we dive into how to delete bookmarks on Mac, we need to quickly mention one more way to organize all the small notes and files around your Mac — Unclutter.
Unclutter is a brilliant utility that instantly makes organizing things easier and your work much more productive. This app stores multiple clipboard copies, notes, and files in one accessible spot and lets you just drag and drop anything you want to use later into it.
With Unclutter, you’ll quickly find that you don’t even need to use your browser bookmarks that often to remember things, since there’s now a more convenient place for them. In addition, Unclutter can sync and back up all your notes to Dropbox, making cross-device access a breeze.
How to remove bookmarks from Safari
Safari is the default browser on all Macs. It’s fast, private, and resource-efficient due to its tight integration with macOS. It also has a versatile system for managing bookmarks.
You can access Safari’s bookmark manager in three spots:
To open the sidebar menu, move your cursor to the left in fullscreen mode or use a shortcut Shift + ⌘ + L
To open the top menu, click Bookmarks in the menu bar
To open a separate bookmarks page, use a shortcut Option + ⌘ + B
You can’t delete bookmarks when you’re in Safari’s top menu. To delete bookmarks in the sidebar menu, simply right-click on them and select Delete. To delete bookmarks on a separate page, you can either right-click or simply select any bookmark (or multiple ones by pressing Shift or ⌘) and hit the Delete key.
How to delete bookmarks in Google Chrome
Chrome is by far the most popular web browser in the world. It’s powerful, feature-rich, and boasts a large ecosystem of extensions. There are also mobile versions of Chrome for iOS and Android that automatically sync all of your bookmarks.
The way that Chrome manages bookmarks is also a bit more robust — the browser actually features a Bookmark Manager, where you can search, create folders, add new bookmarks, etc.
The best way to remove bookmarks from Chrome is to launch its Bookmark Manager by clicking Bookmarks in the menu bar and then selecting Bookmark Manager, or using a shortcut of Option + ⌘ + B, and then either right-clicking on items, or clicking on the three-dot menu and selecting Delete, or using the Delete key.
Tip: You can undo deleting a bookmark using a Chrome pop-up or a shortcut of ⌘ + Z.
How to clear bookmarks in Firefox
A platform-independent browser, Firefox is praised for its privacy, speed, and functionality. In a way, it takes the best of both Chrome and Safari, and also has mobile apps that sync all the information, including bookmarks.
Unlike Chrome and Safari though, Firefox has a separate bookmark manager called Library. To check out the Library, just go to Bookmarks in the menu bar and select Show All Bookmarks (Shift + ⌘ + O).
To delete any bookmarks in the Library, just select them, then right-click and Remove Bookmark or use the Delete key.
How to delete all bookmarks on a Mac
If you want to keep your browsers clean and private, knowing how to remove a bookmark on Mac is not enough — you need a comprehensive solution that would clear your browsing history, cookies, download history, tabs, etc. Doing so manually for every browser would take a lot of your time and is not really feasible long term. That’s why you need an automatic solution like CleanMyMac X.
CleanMyMac X is an all-encompassing optimizer that can remove all the junk from your Mac, including old files, unneeded system logs, dangerous malware, and more in just one click. In addition, you can keep your browsing activity private and completely uninstall any apps.
To delete all web browsing activity from your Mac:
- Launch CleanMyMac X
- Navigate to the Privacy tab
- Click Scan
- Select your browsers
- Check anything you want to delete
- Hit Remove
As you can see, anyone can learn how to delete favorites on MacBook in no time. But the real power of privacy comes from tools like CleanMyMac X. And if you want to make your work more convenient, Unclutter is just one click away.
Best of all, CleanMyMac X and Unclutter are available to you absolutely free for seven days with the trial of Setapp, a platform with more than 220 outstanding Mac apps ready to solve any task at hand, from editing photos (Luminar) to helping you become more productive by using a Pomodoro Technique (Session). Try every Setapp app at no cost today and see how much better your Mac life can be.
