Whatever your reason for wanting to do so – be it cleaning up your bookmarks folder, or deleting old or defunct links from it – to learn how to delete bookmarks through various browsers on an Apple Mac, just follow our simple tutorials laid out below.
For any additional queries or information, see the FAQs at the bottom of this article.
Table of Contents
How to delete bookmarks in Safari on a Mac
- Open up Safari on your Mac, and if necessary, sign-in to your account (the account under which the unwanted bookmarks have been saved)
- From the top menu, locate and click on ‘Bookmarks’
- From the drop-down menu, click on ‘Edit Bookmarks’
- You will be directed to a list of all your saved bookmarks. Scroll through it, expanding any subfolders necessary, until you locate the bookmark(s) you want to delete
- Right-click (‘control’ click) on the unwanted bookmark(s) and from the pop-up menu, click ‘Delete’
- Repeat this process for any and all unwanted bookmarks. To delete entire folders of bookmarks, simply right-click (‘control’ click) on the relevant bookmark folder (in step 4) and from the pop-up menu, click ‘Delete’
Alternative method of deleting bookmarks in Safari on a Mac
- Open up Safari on your Mac, and if necessary, sign-in to your account (the account under which the unwanted bookmarks have been saved)
- Click the ‘Show Sidebar’ icon to the left of the address bar
- Your Safari sidebar will appear to the left of the screen, and will automatically display your bookmarks tab (identified by an open book icon).
- Scroll through this list of bookmarks, expanding any subfolders necessary, until you locate the bookmark(s) you want to delete
- Right-click (‘control’ click) on the unwanted bookmark(s) and from the pop-up menu, click ‘Delete’
- Repeat this process for any and all unwanted bookmarks. To delete entire folders of bookmarks, simply right-click (‘control’ click) on the relevant bookmark folder (in step 4) and from the pop-up menu, click ‘Delete’
How to delete bookmarks in Chrome on a Mac
- Open up Google Chrome on your Mac, and if necessary, sign-in to your account (the account under which the unwanted bookmarks have been saved)
- From the top menu, locate and click on ‘Bookmarks’
- From the drop-down menu, click on ‘Bookmarks Manager’
- You will be directed to a list of all your saved bookmarks. Scroll through it, expanding any subfolders necessary, until you locate the bookmark(s) you want to delete
- Right-click (‘control’ click) on the unwanted bookmark(s) and from the pop-up menu, click ‘Delete’
- Repeat this process for any and all unwanted bookmarks. To delete entire folders of bookmarks, simply right-click (‘control’ click) on the relevant bookmark folder (in step 4) and from the pop-up menu, click ‘Delete’
How to delete bookmarks in Firefox on Mac
- Open up Google Chrome on your Mac, and if necessary, sign-in to your account (the account under which the unwanted bookmarks have been saved)
- From the top menu, locate and click on ‘Bookmarks’
- From the drop-down menu, click on ‘Show All Bookmarks’
- You will be directed to a menu with three different Bookmarks folders – ‘Other Bookmarks’, ‘Bookmarks Toolbar’, and ‘Bookmarks Menu’. Search through these to locate the bookmark(s) you want to delete
- Right-click (‘control’ click) on the unwanted bookmark(s) and from the pop-up menu, click ‘Delete’
- Repeat this process for any and all unwanted bookmarks. To delete entire folders of bookmarks, simply right-click (‘control’ click) on the relevant bookmark folder (in step 4) and from the pop-up menu, click ‘Delete’
And there you have it! Regardless of which of the three major web browser applications you use as default on your Mac, you can quickly and easily clean up that clogged-up bookmarks folder with just a few simple clicks.
For any other queries or additional information, see the FAQs below.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Mac?
Put simply, a Mac is any personal computer (typically manufactured and sold by Apple) that runs the Mac OS as its base operating system – this includes PCs such as Macbooks, iMacs, Macbook Airs. Whilst once fiercely competitive to the point of prohibitive with Windows OS, nowadays most Macs can actually install and run Windows operating systems, which users can switch between freely and easily, as and when they like.
Macs are especially good when coupled with other Apple products and Mac OS or iOS-running hardware. They are generally considered a high-quality computer.
What are bookmarks?
Bookmarks function on a computer effectively the same way they do in a book – they save your place, making it quick and easy to return there whenever you need. Bookmarks are used on web browsers to save specific URLs for later access, and can be found in your Bookmarks folder.
When you click on a bookmark, you are instantly returned to the URL associated with it, no matter whether you saved that particular bookmark yesterday, or three years ago – so long as the website’s still up-and-running, you’ll be sent there.
Why would I want to delete bookmarks on my Mac?
If you’ve had your Mac for some time, chances are you’ve built up a massive backlog of bookmarks – from shopping searches for a new sofa you and your housemate carried out years ago, to links you used in college to research an article; bookmarks you needed for an old job, or the socials links of an old friend or flame.
Whatever they are, chances are you only need or use as little as 10% of them in your general day-to-day. Problem is, finding that useful 10% of bookmarks is rendered slow and frustrating thanks to the screeds and screeds of old, defunct links clogging up your bookmarks settings.
