Preparing for iPhone, Part 6: Bookmarks

Since one of the big benefits of the iPhone is its wireless Internet capabilities and cool implementation of Safari (hello, touch-screen zooming!), I'm assuming that my desktop bookmarks from Safari will get imported to the iPhone, too. If that's the case, well, there's a lot of preparing to do.

My Safari bookmarks are a gnarled, nasty, messy collection of things that I use a lot, things I use occasionally, and stuff I have no recollection of ever bookmarking. There are things in there that are seven years old or more — some of which I never visited after the initial bookmarking.

So, with a little free time on my hand earlier this week, I decided that it was time to wade into the morass of bookmarks. Ick.

I found that I had perhaps close to 1,000 bookmarks spread across folders, subfolders, and the main bookmark menu. The first thing I did was to go in and delete the things that I knew I wouldn't want. This removed perhaps 50 bookmarks.

Next, I placed all the remaining "loose" bookmarks into the folders I already had. Then, it was time to go through each folder and start deleting. Many things were obvious - I didn't need them anymore and out they went. Others required me to look at the websites and decide.

Some of my folders were just irrelevant. The delete key served me well and dozens of more bookmarks were gone. Finally, I created new subfolders and reorganized things.

This all took about 45-50 minutes (and I'm completely done. A few bulging folders overwhelmed me; I'll need to go back). At the end of it, though, I had transformed an extremely long, badly organized bookmarks menu into a list just a few inches long, well organized into folders. This will make using Safari on the iPhone's relatively small screen much easier.

• Part 1: Introduction
• Part 2: Cleaning My Address Book
• Part 3: Preparing for iPhone, Part 3: Losing Steam, Recommitting
• Part 4: Address Book Complete
• Part 5: Cell Phone Contracts