Getting started

You can create a bookmark folder for all your open Safari tabs in just a couple of clicks.

Click the Bookmarks menu at the top of the screen (if you don’t see it, make sure Safari is the active application on your desktop), then select the “Add Bookmarks for These (x) Tabs” option.

When you do, Safari will start the process of creating a new bookmark folder complete with bookmarks for all the open tabs in your current Safari window.

Just create a name for the folder (“Saved Tabs” is the default), pick a location in the Bookmarks menu (such as “Favorites”), then click Add.

Now, just click your new bookmark folder, and all the tabs you saved will spring into your active Safari window.

Bonus tip

You can set your new bookmark folder to open your saved tabs without closing any existing ones.

If you put your bookmark folder of saved tabs in your Favorites bar, clicking the folder will instantly replace all the open tabs in your current Safari browser with your saved tabs.

To open your saved tabs without closing other open tabs in your Safari window, right-click the bookmarks folder of saved tabs in the Favorites bar, then uncheck the “Automatically Replace Tabs” option.

The post Mac tip: An easy way to save your open Safari tabs in a bookmark folder appeared first on here's the thing.

Ready to crack open a Kindle book in your Web browser? Let’s get started.

Opening the Amazon Cloud Reader in a web browser

First, launch your favorite web browser, then visit the Amazon Cloud Reader site at http://read.amazon.com.

Next, sign in to your Amazon account—or, if you don’t have a free Amazon account yet, click “Create a new account” to sign up for one.

Related: How to borrow a Kindle book from Amazon

Once you’re signed into your Amazon account, a window will appear with instructions for setting up your browser to store your Kindle books for “offline” reading, when you don’t have an Internet connection. Again, click the big yellow button and follow the instructions (they vary slightly depending on your browser).

If you’ve already bought Kindle books before, you’ll see them in a grid in your browser; just click a book cover, and presto—you’re reading.

How to buy Kindle books in the Amazon Cloud Reader

No Kindle books yet? Click the “Kindle Store” Button in the top-right corner of the page to begin shopping. Once you’ve chosen a Kindle book to buy, make sure to select your Kindle Cloud Reader in the “Deliver to” drop-down menu, which sits right below the “Buy” button.

Related: How to buy Kindle books on an iPhone or iPad

Don’t worry, you can always send your purchased book to a new device under your account by selecting “Manage Your Content and Devices” under the “Your Amazon” menu near the top of the page.

Managing your Kindle bookmarks, font sizes and background colors

As with the physical Kindle e-reader, the online Cloud Reader lets you add bookmarks as you read, and you can change the font size or background color of the pages.

The Cloud Reader will automatically download the most recently opened books in your Kindle library for when you don’t have an Internet connection (provided you went ahead and enabled the Cloud Reader’s offline reading mode). You can also manually select, or “pin,” a book for offline storage; to do so, just right-click on its cover in the Cloud Reader library.

Related: How to reset the furthest page read of a Kindle book you’re reading

Done reading? Then just close the browser window. And yes—you can always read your Kindle books from another browser or even a different PC or Mac once you log into your account.

The post How to read Kindle books on the web, no Kindle (or app) required appeared first on here's the thing.

Once you turned on Safari reader mode (which you can do by tapping the three-line button on the left side of the address bar), the only customization option available was zooming or shrinking the font size. If you wanted a different font or a new background color, you were out of luck.

Thanks to its new customization options, Safari’s “reader” mode just got a lot more reader-friendly.

But now that iOS 9 is here (and yes, I think it’s safe to say you can upgrade now), Safari reader mode has gotten a lot more … well, reader-friendly.

Once you make the leap to the new iOS and tap the reader mode button, you’ll see a series of new customization options.

Finally, you’ll be able to change fonts in addition to font sizes. A total of eight fonts are available, from Athelas to Times Roman. (I’m partial to Georgia.)

You can also choose from four backgrounds: white, off-white, gray and black. Personally, I’m thrilled that a black background is finally available, meaning it’ll be easier to read the web at night without bothering my snoozing wife.

Keep in mind that Safari’s reader mode button is available on most web articles, but not all; in some cases, the button won’t appear on certain mobile-optimized pages.

Click here for more iOS tips!

The post iOS 9 tip: Safari’s reader mode just got a whole lot better appeared first on here's the thing.

That much you may already know. What you may not know, however, is how to quickly add new sites to the Favorites panel, or how easily to can rearrange, rename or delete your Favorites buttons. You can even turn a different folder of Safari bookmarks into your Favorites.

Read on for three ways to make the most of your Safari Favorites, starting with…

There’s an easy way to add sites to your Favorites on an iPhone or iPad.

Quickly mark a site as a Favorite

So, what’s the easiest way to designate a web site as one of your Favorites? Well, you could open the site on your iPhone, tap the Action button (the square one with the upward arrow), tap Add Bookmark, tap Location (almost there!), then tap Favorites.

If you’re using Safari on a Mac and you’re syncing your bookmarks with iCloud, you could just drag and drop a URL in the address bar into the Favorites bar—not too much work.

By far the easiest way to turn a web site into a Favorite, though, is this: open the site in Safari on your iPhone or iPad, tap the address bar, then tug down on the Favorites panel to reveal the Add to Favorites button. Tap it, and done!

Want to rearrange your Favorites? Just tap, hold and drag.

Rearrange, rename, or delete a Favorite

Want to juggle the order of your Favorites buttons, change their names, or nix them altogether? Easily done.

Tap the address bar to open the Favorites panel, then tap and hold a Favorites button. Now, drag it up, down, left or right; when you do, the other buttons will scoot out of the way. When you’re happy with the new position of the button, just let it go.

To edit a Favorite’s name or delete it, tap and hold its button, then release. A pop up with two buttons—Delete and Edit—will appear. Tap Delete to trash the Favorite, or Edit to change its name or URL.

Turn any bookmarks folder into your Safari favorites

Nope, there’s no iOS law saying that the Favorites folder in Safari is the only bookmarks folder that can contain your Favorites.

You can choose any of your bookmark folders to be your Favorites, not just the default Favorites folder.

In fact, you can choose any of your bookmark folders to be your Favorites, not just the default Favorites folder.

If, for example, you’ve created a folder full of web tools you need for work, or a folder of your favorite online news sites, you can quickly designate either one of those as your Favorites in Safari.

Here’s the trick…

• Tap Settings, Safari.
• Head for the General section, then tap Favorites.
• Go ahead and select any one of your bookmark folders.

Now, go back to Safari, tap the address bar, and presto: your Favorite sites should now be the same as those in the folder you selected.

Click here for more iOS tips!

The post iOS tip: 3 ways to make the most of your Safari Favorites appeared first on here's the thing.

Want to email the complete text—not just the URL—of a web article from your iPhone or iPad? Meet the Reader View button, your new best friend.

Well, yes, but doing so only sends a link to the article, not the article itself. What if you want to save your friend a step by sending the entire article in your mail message?

One option is to copy and paste the text of the article, but that can be a messy process, especially given how tricky it can be to precisely select text on a touchscreen.

Luckily, there’s a much easier way to forward the entire text of an article via email, and it only takes an extra tap.

When you’re viewing the article in Safari on your iPhone or iPad, go up to the address bar (you may have to pull down on the page to make the address bar visible), then look on the left side for a tiny button marked with four horizontal lines.

With a little help from Safari’s Reader mode, you can easily paste the entire body of a web article into an email.

Tap the button to activate Reader View, a handy Safari feature that reformats web articles for easier reading on small screens.

Now, tap the Action button and tap Mail; when you do, the entire text of the article, including (perhaps) a few images, will appear in a draft mail message. Add a sender and a subject, tap the Send button, and you’re all set.

Note: Don’t see the Reader View button? Unfortunately, some web pages aren’t compatible with Safari’s Reader mode; in that case, you’ll have to settle for sending just a link or copying and pasting.

Click here for more iOS tips!

The post iOS tip: Forward an entire web article via email, not just the link appeared first on here's the thing.

Well, there is, actually—and in fact, you can make Safari (or just about any browser) put your downloaded files anywhere you want on your Mac.

You can make Safari put downloaded files anywhere you want on your Mac.

Here’s the trick…

• Open Safari, click the Safari menu in the top-left corner of the screen, select Preferences, then click the General tab.
• Next, see the “Save downloaded file to” pull-down menu? The default setting is the Downloads folder. To change it, click the menu, select “Other,” pick a place on your Mac’s hard drive (like Desktop). then click the blue Select button in the bottom corner of the window.

Now, go ahead and close the Preferences window, then try saving a file using Safari. When you do, Safari will save your download to the directory you picked, skipping the Downloads folder.

Bonus tip

You can change the “Save downloads to” setting on just about any browser, not just Safari.

With Chrome, for example, click the Chrome menu in the top corner of the screen, select Preferences, click Setting in the left column of the page, go down and click “Show advanced settings,” then pick a new directory under the Downloads section.

Click here for more Mac tips!

The post Mac tip: Make Safari save your downloads wherever you want appeared first on here's the thing.

But here’s a nifty little twist to that feature for users of iOS 8 and the Mac’s new Yosemite update: now, in addition to viewing open Safari tabs on your other Macs, iPhones, and iPads, you can also close those tabs, too.

On a Mac, just move your mouse over the tab you want to close—say, an open tab on your iPhone—and click the little “X” that appears.

On a Mac, just click the “Show all tabs” button in Safari (it’s the button with two squares in the top-right corner of the Safari window), move your mouse over the tab you want to close—say, an open tab on your iPhone—and click the little “X” that appears.

On an iPhone or iPad, tap the “Show all tabs” button, find a tab you want to close on another device, swipe it from right to left, then tap the red “Delete” button.

Within a few seconds or so, the open Safari tab on your other iDevice will disappear, just like that.

Update: Can’t see the open tabs in your other devices? Try this, as noted by The Loop:

First things first, if you want to share tabs between your Yosemite powered Mac and an iOS device running iOS 8, go to Settings > iCloud and make sure the Safari switch is on.

Click here for Mac help, or click here for more iOS tips!

The post iOS 8/Mac tip: Close an open Safari tab on another iPhone, iPad, or Mac appeared first on here's the thing.

Hi Phil! I too was a bit surprised that Safari’s Favorites bar—you know, the bar with buttons for all your favorite sites that sits just below the address bar—disappeared once I installed the Yosemite update on my Mac. What happened?

Phew, it’s back!

Well, never fear. The Favorites bar isn’t gone forever. It’s just hiding.

To reveal the old Favorites bar, click the View menu, then select Show Favorites Bar. Done!

Want to keep the Favorites bar hidden? If so, you can still get to your favorites by clicking the address bar. When you do, a panel with icons for all your favorite sites will slide out. Click an icon to visit a favorite.

Or, here’s another option: As Phil notes, you can click the sidebar button in the top-left corner of the Safari window. When the sidebar appears, click the left Bookmarks tab, then open up the Favorites section.

Bonus tip

Want to know the easiest way to add a site to the Favorites bar? Just drag its URL from the address bar into the Favorites bar; when you do, the buttons for other favorite sites will scoot out of the way.

Need to delete a favorite? Just drag it out of the Favorites bar.

Got more questions about Yosemite—or Mac OS X in general? Let me know!

The post Mac tip: Miss the Favorites bar in Safari? Here’s how to get it back appeared first on here's the thing.

In fact, you can set any of the four major browsers—Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari—to load as many “home” or “start” pages as you like, all in separate browser tabs.

Here’s how…

Chrome will let you add as many “startup” tabs as you like.

For Google Chrome:

• Click the menu button in the top-right corner of the Chrome interface (it’s the one marked with three short horizontal lines), then select Settings.
• Find the “On startup” section, click the “Open a specific page or set of pages” button, then click the “Set pages” link.
• Fill in the blank next to “Add a new page” with a web address (URL) you want Chrome to open when it first starts up, then click OK. Want more pages to open? Just keep adding URLs one at a time, or click the “Use current pages” button to automatically add the browser tabs you already have open.
• Done adding tabs? Click the OK button once more, then quit Chrome and start it up again.
• Presto! All the pages you just entered should start loading automatically.

Just open the tabs you want Firefox to load as it starts and click the “Use Current Pages” button.

For Firefox:

• Launch a new Firefox window, then open tabs for all the pages you’d like Firefox to open when it first starts up.
• Click the Firefox menu and select Preferences (on a Mac), or click Tools, Options (on a PC), then click the General tab.
• Make sure the “When Firefox starts” option is set to “Show my home page,” then click the “Use Current Pages” button under the blank labeled “Home Page.”
• Close the settings window, quick Firefox, open it again … and there you go.

Keep adding URLs to the “home page” field to load multiple tabs when Internet Explorer starts.

For Internet Explorer:

• Open the Tools menu (it’s the gear-shaped button in the upper-right corner of the browser interface), select Internet Options, then click the General tab.
• You should see a big “Home page” form at the top of the Internet Options window. Start entering the web addresses you want to load as tabs when you start Internet Explorer, or click the “Use current” button if you’ve already got the tabs open in a browser window.
• In the “Startup” section, make sure “Start with home page” is selected.
• Click the Apply button, quit IE, launch it again, then sit back and watch as your tabs load.

You’ll need to create and then select a bookmarks folder to make Safari load multiple tabs when it launches.

For Safari:

• Open a new Safari window, then create tabs for all the pages you’d like to load when the browser first starts.
• Open the Bookmarks menu, then select “Add Bookmarks for These (x) Tabs.” You’ll need to pick a name for your the bookmarks folder you’re about to create; you might want to choose “Startup tabs,” or another easy-to-remember name.
• Next, open the Safari menu and select Preferences, then click the General tab.
• Find the “Safari opens with” setting and select “A new window” from the pull-down menu.
• Then, for the “New windows open with” setting, select “Choose tabs folder,” then select the folder you just created in the window that appears.
• Quit Safari, launch it again, and you’ll see your startup tabs waiting for you.

The post Browser tip: Set multiple “home” or “start” pages for your web browser appeared first on here's the thing.

So I use Command + and – to make the fonts larger or smaller. But when I close the site out and then log back in, the fonts are small again.

Do you know how to make the fonts stay the size I need them from site to site?

Hi Belinda! There’s no Safari setting I know of that will “remember” custom font sizes for your favorite web sites, but there is a way to keep fonts on any web page from ever getting too tiny.

Just choose a minimum font size in Safari from the drop-down menu, or type in a size of your own.

Give this a try…

• Open Safari, click the Safari menu in the top-left corner of the page, select Preferences, then click the Advanced tab in the window that pops open.
• Check the box labeled “Never use font sizes smaller than,” then pick a size from the drop-down menu—anything from 9 to 24. You can also go ahead and type in any font size you wish.
• Now, visit any web page—and depending on the minimum font size you picked, the text on the page should immediately jump in size.
• Not happy with the result? (Yes, the results can get downright weird if you pick a large enough font.) Go back and tinker with the font size until you’re satisfied.

Hope that helps, Belinda. Still have questions? Let me know!

Click here for more Mac tips!

The post Mac tip: Keep font sizes in Safari from getting too small appeared first on here's the thing.