Create monthly snapshot of all open tabs

macOS AppleScript
1

Every so often (maybe every couple years) I accidentally close all my open Safari tabs and it becomes impossible to recover them. On iOS, you only have a couple minutes to reopen closed tabs before they vanish forever. Neither restoring from an iCloud backup or a local backup is capable of recovering closed Safari tabs after those crucial minutes come to pass. I know from experience: early tonight I had one of those moments and I’ve since restored my iPad three times in different ways in the hopes of recovering my 300+ Safari tabs.

Apple doesn’t make it easy to recover Safari tabs. Bookmarks, on the other hand, are saved to iCloud and can be reliably recovered within a few clicks.

I’m wondering if anybody could share a better workflow for backing up Safari tabs. I have a couple ideas myself of automations I could build, but I haven’t yet figured out if it’s even possible to build these scripts.

  • Cycle though each open window, right-click each tab group and choose “Copy Links,” then save the clipboard to a text file.
  • For each tab group or window, add a bookmark for all open tabs and name the bookmarks folder according to the current date.
  • Something else? Discuss ideas in the comments.
2

Hi

Yes, tabs are notoriously volatile on Safari :man_facepalming: Before digging into a full export solution, have you considered dispatching them by their importance so losing all tabs isn’t as bad?

If it’s of any inspiration here’s how I handle my Safari browsing:

  • If it’s volatile and I’m fine losing (mostly news or tech articles), I leave it open in Safari
  • If it requires effort, I put it in a Tab Group (long article that requires concentration, tutorial, access to another device, create an account). I don’t use Reading List (it’s too clumsy on iPhone) but that could be an alternative for your needs on iPad/Mac.
  • If it’s unique and I don’t want to lose it, I export to Instapaper in a specific category (must-see video, recipe, some online game).

It’s a small chore but it keeps me on top of the topics I want to keep. Tell me if this helps.

Cheers!

3

I’m not sure that is possible in iOS

If you have a mac handy it’s easy, just use applescript.
There are a lot of options, as an example the code below will copy all open tabs to a text document on the desktop:

set myURLs to {}
tell application “Safari” to set myURLs to the URL of every tab of every window
set text item delimiters to linefeed
set myURLs to myURLs as text
set text item delimiters to {}
if not myURLs is equal to “” then
do shell script "echo " & myURLs’s quoted form & “> $HOME/Desktop/URL_list.txt”
end if

1 Like
4

And here’s a variation with html. I use something similar to “save sessions” either manually or whenever I close Safari. The variable docText is html with two lists: One with links and tab names, and one with text urls, which gives you the option to click a link or easily copy the underlying url.

set todaysDate to (current date)
set the Title to ¬
	"Saved Session - " & todaysDate as string

tell application "Safari"
	tell window 1
		set docText to "<h2>" & Title & "</h2>"
		repeat with t in every tab
			set tabName to name of t
			set tabURL to URL of t
			set docText to docText & "<a href=" & "\"" & tabURL & "\">" & tabName & "</a>" & "</br>" & linefeed as string
		end repeat
		set docText to docText & "</br>" & linefeed as string
		repeat with t in every tab
			set tabURL to URL of t
			set docText to docText & tabURL & "</br>" & linefeed as string
		end repeat
	end tell
	do shell script "echo " & docText's quoted form & "> $HOME/Desktop/URL_list.html"
end tell
1 Like
5

Thanks! I found a similar script from RosemaryOrchard:

tell application "Safari"
	set docText to ""
	set tabcount to number of tabs in the front window
	
	--Repeat for Every Tab in Current Window
	repeat with y from 1 to tabcount
		
		--Get Tab Name & URL
		set tabName to name of tab y of the front window
		set tabURL to URL of tab y of the front window
		
		set docText to docText & "- [" & tabName & "](" & tabURL & ")" & linefeed as string
	end repeat
	set the clipboard to docText
end tell