Online File Syncing Services useable by Synkmark & BookMacster
Smarky, Synkmark and BookMacster are designed, somewhat cleverly we think, to sync via any online file syncing service with no special configuration. This page explains the criteria which are important in choosing such a service for this purpose, our evaluations of popular services, and our methodology in case you’d like to do your own evaluation.
Note to Smarky users. Although you can sync a Smarky bkmslf file among multiple Macs as described below, we don’t know of any use case in which this would be a good idea. This is because Smarky supports only Safari, and Safari syncing is completely supported by iCloud, which also supports syncing of passwords and open tabs in addition to bookmarks. Therefore, you should activate System Preferences > iCloud > Safari and let iCloud sync among your Macs. Installing Smarky on one Mac is sufficient to keep your bookmarks alphabetized, because whatever Smarky does on one Mac will be copied to the other Mac by iCloud. But that will only happen when the Smarky Mac is running, so if you use only one or the other Mac for long periods of time, you might want to install Smarky on more than one Mac. Our Regular License allows this for Macs owned by a human person.
BookMacster : Inexplicable Sync Fights
If a Sync Fight cannot be explained by improper configuration, one of the sync actors may be misbehaving.
(Because these issues are generally beyond our observation and control, we'd appreciate your reporting to us any successes or failures so that we can build appropriate workarounds into future BookMacster versions. Clicking Help ▸ Trouble Zipper in BookMacster's menu is the best way to do that.)
Safari and iCloud
We have seen evidence that iCloud can sometimes be stubborn about not wanting a bookmark or two sorted. We think that the solution may be to reset iCloud's Bookmarks syncing, like this…
• Activate the erring Bookmarkshelf document in BookMacster.
• If the toolbar indicates that syncing is enabled, click the button to Pause syncing.
• Click in the menu: ▸ System Preferences.
• Click the tool iCloud.
• Switch off the checkbox labelled Bookmarks.
• Leave both off for at least 5 minutes.
• In System Preferences, switch back on the checkbox labelled Bookmarks.
• Click that it's OK to Merge bookmarks.
BookMacster : Nudge version 1.17-1.18
Unfortunately, BookMacster versions 1.17 through 1.18.1 were published with a typographical error which prevents later versions from being detected by BookMacster's built-in updater, if you happen to have switched the Beta or Alpha checkoxes in Preferences > Updating either ON or OFF while running one of these versions.
The result is that your BookMacster will be perpetually stuck at whatever version you have, 1.17 - 1.18.1. Of course, you could trash BookMacster and reinstall the latest version downloaded from scratch, but since we goofed, we're offering a couple other methods which should be easier.
Use-Our-Little-Script Method
• Click here to download a zip archive of our little AppleScript.
• If the script does not decompress automatically, double-click it to produce the file named BookMacster-Nudge.app.
• Double-click the script to run. It should instantly fix your preferences if necessary, and tell you what it did, or not.
Do-It-Yourself Method
• Open Applications > Utilties > Terminal.app
Synkmark, Markster & BookMacster 2.x
Version 2.x is a paid upgrade from version 1.x, and requires OS X 10.10 or later.
In addition to improved appearance and many bug fixes, version 2 has some new features for maintaining your bookmarks.
Version 1 licenses of Smarky, Synkmark, Markster and BookMacster will not work in Version 2. Users upgrading to Version 2 must obtain a new license. Pricing, in U.S. dollars, depends on how long ago your Version 1 license was acquired, as shown in the table below. You may try the new version first, by clicking the 3-day Demo (Trial) button, to get a free trial. You may do this three times, to get a total of 9 trial days. If you decide to purchase, click the Regular License button. Our built-in store will find license from any of our products and automatically apply the appropriate discount, be it upgrade, downgrade or crossgrade.
| Less than 18 monthsr | 18-30 months | More than 30 months | New User | |
| Smarky | 0.00 | 2.95 | 4.95 | 11.95 |
| Synkmark | 0.00 | 4.95 | 6.95 | 16.95 |
| Markster | 0.00 | 4.95 | 6.95 | 16.95 |
| BookMacster | 0.00 | 4.95 | 9.95 | 22.95 |
Viability of Version 1
Although version 1 of our apps will launch and do something in macOS 10.6 and up, we no longer test them. The following are known issues:
For BookMacster and Synkmark users, the old versions of our browser extensions which version 1 contains are not compabitle with current versions of Chrome or Firefox. Therefore, if you are syncing bookmarks with Chrome or Firefox, or using our toolbar button in Chrome or menu item in Firefox, in order to use version 1 of our apps, you must also be using old versions of Chrome and/or Firefox, and, of course, disable their automatic updating. For Chrome, you must be using Chrome 47 or earlier. For FIrefox, you must be using Firefox 42 or earlier, although with a little hack, you may use up to Firefox 46.
Old versions of macOS, old versions of Chrome and old versions of Firefox, are all less secure than current versions. Almost any Mac made since 2010 will run the current versions. We encourage all users to update their systems if possible.
For Safari users, if you are using iCloud to sync your Safari bookmarks (usually to iOS devices), and macOS 10.12 or later, and if your iOS devices are on iOS 10 or later, there is a high probability that Apple has already or shall very soon migrate your iCloud account to their new CloudKit protocol which only version 2 of our apps can handle. You should therefore not use version 1 of our apps if you are using iCloud to sync Safari with the latest versions of iOS and macOS. We have not done enough testing to be sure of those version number cutoffs, but generally earlier versions of macOS and iOS are safer to use with version 1 of our apps.
To summarize, if you sync your bookmarks with current versions of web browsers, you need to be using a current version of our apps too.
How to revert to or get Version 1
Please read and consider the previous section on viability before proceeding with Version 1.
If you've updated to version 2 of our apps, would still prefer to revert to version 1.x, the updater probably put it in your Trash. You may retrieve it out of there and replace your new version with it.
If you don’t find it there, or if you are purposefully wanting old versions for an old (insecure) version of macOS, you may download version 1 from these links: Smarky 1.22 Synkmark 1.22 Markster 1.22 BookMacster 1.22
Version 1 licenses are upgradeable to version 2, free for a time, as explained above.
New Features in BookMacster, Synkmark, Markster and Smarky Version 2.2
Versions 2.2 of BookMacster, Synkmark and Smarky have three new features to help you maintain your bookmarks.
Find/Replace Text
The Find tab is now Find/Replace Text, and is now a full-featured find/replace utility for any of your bookmarks’ text attributes (Name, URL, Shortcut, Comments). This is demonstrated at the beginning of the video below.
Upgrade Insecure Bookmarks
Many websites are now secured with SSL certificates. It is more secure to visit these sites using the newer, more secure https:// protocol. Running Upgrade Insecure Bookmarks tab will test each insecure bookmark, and upgrade all which respond to the more secure https:// protocol. This is demonstrated beginning at 0:48 into the video below.
Remove URL Cruft
Links posted on the internet nowadays often have long URLs which contain cruft which is not necessary to load the page you want, but may be there to track where you got the link from or other ancillary purposes. Running Remove URL Cruft will search for known cruft, or cruft you define in your bookmarks, show you what it found, and then delete the cruft for you, resulting in shorter, cleaner URLs. This is demonstrated beginning at 1:34 into the video below.