Apple released Safari 14 on September 16, 2020 and introduced a new “Start Page”, replacing the previous “Top Sites” feature.
For users who used the “Top Sites” feature (a collection of up to 12 frequently used sites), the websites previously configured in Top Sites are simply gone.
For example, here is how Safari 13 looked on my laptop. These are 12 sites/tools I visit several times a day:
Here is what Safari 14 looks like now – (note ALL of the frequently visited “Top Sites” are nowhere to be found):
The website addresses are not saved anywhere in Safari 14. This can be very disconcerting for users who are used to seeing their Top Sites and even more concerning that Apple hasn’t saved the URLs for any of the sites listed in Top Sites. Most people don’t have their Top Sites addresses saved elsewhere.
If Apple’s fail with the Safari 14 upgrade impacts you, here is a way to recover the website URLs which were previously stored in Top Sites:
- Click on the Desktop (switches you to the Finder application)
- Hold down the Option key and click on the Go menu. With the Option key down, the “Library” item appears in the Go menu.
- Scroll through the Library folder and find the Safari folder
- Inside the Safari folder is a file named “TopSites.plist”.
The TopSites.plist file contains the URLs of the sites you had stored in Top Sites before upgrading to Safari 14. Copy/paste these addresses as needed and bookmark or favorite them as needed.
