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Sync IE favorites with iPad / iPhone / iTouch

2012-01-25

  • iPad (original) model MC496LL, iOS 5.0.1 (Build 9A406)
  • Windows 7 Ultimate x86 SP2 with Internet Explorer 9, iTunes 10.5.3.3 and iCloud 1.0.1

Two options:

1.) This is the newer option based on iCloud. iCloud was a new feature in iOS 5.0. It stores data on Apple's servers so that the data can be accessed/synced by multiple iOS and iTunes devices. You need to install iCloud Control Panel on your Windows computer and use that to sync your IE favorites to iCloud. Then on the device, you need to set up Safari bookmarks to sync via iCloud. You log on to iCloud using your iTunes account.

On iPad, go to Settings --> iCloud --> Bookmarks --> make sure this is set to "on." It looks like IE must be open for the sync to work. Per http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4001, "Safari and Internet Explorer require port 443 access to iCloud in order to push and pull updates to and from the iCloud Bookmarks servers." I was not aware that IE had to be open--no where in the iCloud interface does it mention that.

After several attempts, I have not been able to get this to work. It seems like my computer never syncs to iCloud, but I don't get any error in the iCould Control Panel. I didn't want to waste anymore time so I went with option 2.

2.) Disable option 1 and use iTunes syncing via USB.

I had read http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1296?viewlocale=en_US and wasn't really clear on this and didn't get it working initially. I had initially thought that bookmark syncing to iCloud on my iPad was related to this, but it's not. This is strictly iTunes syncing via USB. I did get this working easily, so this is what I'm currently using.

Once this is set up, each subfolder under C:\Users\%username%\Favorites\ will have a file named .AppleSyncInfo that contains some sync configuration info as shown below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>SyncId</key>
    <string>CEE9E6DE-D612-5678-96DF-12345AC2ACDB</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Note: with either option, favorites/bookmark syncing only works with IE or Safari on a Windows computer.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 at 11:21 AM and is filed under IT - Misc Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Sync IE favorites with iPad / iPhone / iTouch”

  1. Junebugsm Says:
    February 18th, 2012 at 11:32 PM

    http://ipadacademy.com/2010/08/how-to-sync-your-web-browser-bookmarks-with-your-ipad

    The link above was the only thing that helped me. It actually worked.

  2. SysAdmin-E Says:
    February 19th, 2012 at 9:27 AM

    Junebugsm: Thanks for checking out my site and for the iPad link. The instructions in that link are the same as my option 2, which is to manually sync via iTunes and USB.

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