Support & FAQ

Simply download Bookmarks Star for Safari from the Mac App Store. After installation, open the app and enable the extension from the Safari menu: Safari -> Settings -> Extensions.

Getting the bookmark status of the active tab takes around 5-10 milliseconds, getting the folder paths (on demand) takes around 20-40 milliseconds. Number of open tabs does not affect the performance as it only performs a URL check for the active & in-focus tab.

The extension only reads the URL of the active tab to see if it is in your Safari bookmarks or not. It does not read/edit/track/store any other page data or the page content at any time.

In order to change icon colors in real-time, the extension has to use a lightweight content script, that is why Safari shows a "This extension can read and alter webpages you visit" message by default. The extension does not read/edit/track/store any webpage content at any time.

No. Privacy is important to me. The extension does not use any third party services like analytics or tracking. No data is sent/received to/from anywhere outside your computer. The extension and its container app are self-contained.

Yes, the bookmark status is sync'ed across devices in real-time. E.g. when you add a page to your Safari bookmarks on your iPhone/iPad, the star icon's color will be updated on your Mac instantly (if it is the currently active tab on your Mac).

For these cases, first check if the background processes are enabled in the Bookmarks Star App (this would usually be the case). You can toggle the background synch OFF/ON or click on the "Initiate a manual re-sync" button in the App window to manually sync your bookmarks again. On some edge cases, bookmarks might be out-of sync due to iCloud connectivity issues. A manual re-sync will fix this.

No, this extension only reads the Safari bookmarks file and nothing else. It does not edit any files or view/change any other files on your Mac.

That is a limitation of Safari. Safari does not allow background scripts to access the URLs of local files. You can still click on the bookmark star icon to see the bookmark folder paths.

The extension only checks for exact URL matches of the bookmarked URL. So if the website you visit have dynamic URL parameters like session IDs, or if it redirects to another URL other than the bookmarked URL, the extension will not be able to show it as bookmarked. This is the expected behavior of the extension.

On some edge cases (due to Safari caching & website structure), the extension finds the correct icon color and tries to update it before Safari fully switches the context of the tab. For those cases, the extension has a debounce mechanism to update the icon color after 1 seconds.

Adding the Bookmarks Star App to your login items list ensures the extension is available immediately when you start your Mac. Otherwise, you'll have to manually start the Bookmarks Star App and reconnect the extension to your Safari bookmarks everytime you restart your Mac to keep your bookmarks in sync.

I've tried to keep the extension as light as possible, without editing any files on your Mac and without keyboard listeners. So to keep it this way, I don't plan to implement complex file management or keystroke capturing features.