There is some type of error that has developed between the current version of Safari and Catalina 10.15.3. When you try to Delete or Add a New Bookmark in Safari you get this error message, “You can’t change your bookmarks right now because they are being synchronized. Wait a few minutes, and then try again.” Trying again in a few minutes does not work. I have tried all kinds of things to fix this without success until I finally came up with this information. If you are having this issue, then read on for a solution that worked for me and for others.
Safari & iCloud
If you stop to read the error message, it is all about bookmarks being synced. So, where do most of us sync bookmarks? We sync them with iCloud right? Try this fix for this problem. Quit Safari and then go into the iCloud Preferences area:
The iCloud Preferences are now in your Apple ID area. Once in this window you will be looking at all the Apps and services that are synced with iCloud and thus with your other Apple Devices:
If you look down the list, one of those Apps is Safari. Just uncheck Safari for syncing:
Then close the window and Restart your Mac. You may not need to do a Restart, but it cannot hurt to force all your connecting services to re-connect so to speak.
Once your machine is booted up again, open Safari and try to Add or Delete a bookmark. Hopefully, it will work just fine. After running Safari for a few minutes I went in and activated Safari iCloud syncing once again. This caused this error to return when I tried to Delete a bookmark. So, I just unchecked the box for Safari Syncing for now awaiting a fix from Apple.
If its any consolation, I booted into my Catalina Developer 10.15.3 Beta 3. The problem is not present there, Safari Delete and Add of bookmarks works just fine. I hope that carries over into the final release of this Beta.
Conclusion:
I am sure Apple will work out this bug in the next Catalina and/or Safari release, at least I hope they will.
Dream on Douglas, I just reluctantly installed 10.15.4 hoping it would fix this bug and other weird things that happen since Catalina like finding all my calendar birthdays. ( which show in Fantastical but not in Calendar now). A wish would be to give me back my “bleeping” widgets which I user every daily pre Catalina but that is too much to hope for.
Side note, On my MacBook I deleted Catalina and life is almost back to normal with it.
Sorry to hear about your problems. Yes, some folks are having issues, especially on MacBooks. Catalina in general and 10.15.4 in particular has been the most buggy release yet.Glad you could get Catalina off your machine. I think Apple takes on too much in too short a time.
Doug
Thank you SO much!! This has been driving me insane!!
It’s almost 1 year later and Apple still hasn’t fixed this annoying problem.
I am having the same problem with 10.15.7. But I have not been able to join icloud because I use mail.ru that is refused. I try to use my little used Gmail account and get a confirmation code that does not work! I give up. Save my own bookmarks in Word. I hope Apple continues to support MacBook Air after so many years since moving to user
unfriendly Iphone, eclipsed already by Chinese OPPO,etc.