Importing bookmarks from Safari fails

[jonathansampson]

Description

Users are reporting that bookmark imports from Safari are failing.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install Brave Core
2. Attempt to import bookmarks from Safari

Actual result:

Import fails, or structure is not preserved.

Expected result:

Import should succeed, and maintain original structure.

Reproduces how often:

Always.

Brave version (brave://version info)

0.58.16

Reproducible on current release:

Yes.

Related Issue(s)

See issue #996 for Vivaldi support.
Related upstream issue: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=850225

[kirkins]

+1 from Punisha on telegram

[cndouglas]

Helpful information from Community: https://community.brave.com/t/why-importing-mac-safari-bookmarks-isnt-working/47521

[bsclifton]

There is a known work-around for this (will share link if I can find it) - @rossmoody notes that the new Edge has a wizard which helps with this, which we can look at 😄

[Brave-Matt]

@bsclifton https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019782291-How-do-I-import-or-export-browsing-data-

[bsclifton]

+1 from @ZaJarv via #7123

Hei!👋
As title says, bookmarks import from Safari on macOS doesn't work. What is interesting, for me it doesn't work for different macOS and Brave versions, i started to notice this issue few month ago. Back then i used macOS Mojave. Now i am using macOS Catalina with latest Brave Browser version with same issue. It says that everything is ok, bookmarks is imported, but it doesn't. It only works if i export bookmarks from Safari to html and then load it via import option in Brave, only in this case it works as expected.

macOS Catalina 10.15.1
Safari 13.0.3
Brave 1.0.1

Cheers✌️

[simonhong]

@rebron I think this issue should be wontfix because macOS prevent application access to safari's bookmark list. After giving that permission(disk access) to Brave, it can import w/o any error. Same as chrome. WDYT?

[rebron]

@simonhong Edge has a prompt for full disk access for Safari import. Can you take a look at that and maybe we need to add design/UE input in here?

[simonhong]

@rebron Yup, showing guide dialog seems good.

[rebron]

cc: @karenkliu @bradleyrichter on Safari full disk access dialog in order to import bookmarks from Safari.

[bsclifton]

@rebron would be a good candidate for uplift 😄 Even if we just uplifted to Beta (1.5) or Dev (1.6)

NOTE: If we did uplift, we'd want to also grab brave/brave-core#4711

[LaurenWags]

Verified passed using 10.14.6 x64 on macOS (Mojave)

Brave	1.5.109 Chromium: 80.0.3987.132 (Official Build) beta (64-bit)
Revision	fcea73228632975e052eb90fcf6cd1752d3b42b4-refs/branch-heads/3987@{#974}
OS	macOS Version 10.14.6 (Build 18G3020)

• Verified test plan from Show dialog when Brave tries to import Safari data w/o disk permission brave-core#4530

• Confirmed the link on the modal opens https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019782291#safari in a new tab
• Confirmed Cancel closes the modal.
• Confirmed Open System Preferences opened System Preferences to the Privacy > Full Disk Access section
• Confirmed following the steps outlined in the help doc and close/relaunch of Brave I was able to import bookmarks from Safari.

---

Verified passed using 10.13.6 x64 on macOS (High Sierra)

Brave	1.5.109 Chromium: 80.0.3987.132 (Official Build) beta (64-bit)
Revision	fcea73228632975e052eb90fcf6cd1752d3b42b4-refs/branch-heads/3987@{#974}
OS	macOS Version 10.13.6 (Build 17G5019)

• Ensured importing from Safari did not require full disk access on High Sierra. No modal was displayed and import of bookmarks occurred without issue.

[LaurenWags]

cc @kjozwiak to check other macOS versions

[kjozwiak]

Verification PASSED on macOS 10.14.3 x64 using the following build:

Brave | 1.5.109 Chromium: 80.0.3987.132 (Official Build) beta (64-bit)
-- | --
Revision | fcea73228632975e052eb90fcf6cd1752d3b42b4-refs/branch-heads/3987@{#974}
OS | macOS Version 10.15.3 (Build 19D76)

• Verified test plan from Show dialog when Brave tries to import Safari data w/o disk permission brave-core#4530
• Confirmed the link on the modal opens https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019782291#safari in a new tab
• Confirmed Cancel closes the modal.
• Confirmed Open System Preferences opened System Preferences to the Privacy > Full Disk Access section
• Confirmed following the steps outlined in the help doc and close/relaunch of Brave I was able to import bookmarks from Safari.