How do I know when my bookmarks have been updated?

October 6, 2005 12:42 PM

Is there a way to know automatically whether a webpage has been updated?

I'm a Mac owner, and I'm looking for a way to check my browser's bookmarks and know when a particular webpage has changed. I remember back from my PC days that there was a way to subscribe to a webpage and either see an icon in your bookmarks that indicated the page had changed since you last viewed it, or even get an e-mail saying as much, if I recall correctly. I'm using Safari on a Mac now, and there doesn't seem to be a way to do it without actually opening each page and seeing for myself. Is there in fact a way to do it? Should I be using a different browser?

posted by catesbie to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

OmniWeb has had this feature for several years now.

These days most people use RSS feeds instead, I'm sure someone can fill in the details...
posted by xil at 12:56 PM on October 6, 2005

One simple thing you can try is Safari RSS, which is part of Tiger (OS X 10.4). If you don't have Tiger or you don't like the way Safari handles RSS itself, you can try a program like NetNewsWire, which has a great "lite" version that's free.
posted by bcwinters at 1:24 PM on October 6, 2005

you could try using the last modified header. a lot of sites don't support it though.
posted by alkupe at 1:42 PM on October 6, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks for the help, all. I confess real ignorance here, but I thought RSS feeds were mostly a news-site thing--something that not all sites would have? What I'm actually interested in doing specifically is less 'what are the new headlines on CNN' and more 'is the book I want on Amazon on sale yet'? I think finding a better browser might be the ideal solution. (Thanks for the recommendation, xil!)
posted by catesbie at 1:48 PM on October 6, 2005

Changedetection.com
posted by Boobus Tuber at 2:25 PM on October 6, 2005

I'll second Boobus' recommendation. Changedetection works great.
posted by Rothko at 2:46 PM on October 6, 2005

I've used Watch That Page in the past. It's free and will send you an email anytime one of the pages that you monitor changes.
posted by finallymarki at 2:59 PM on October 6, 2005

If you can bear to use Internet Explorer for Mac, it has this feature.

Open your "Favourites" window, click on the Favourite you want to check, then do "Get Info" and use the "Subscribe" tab.

The default is once a day, but you can use the "Schedule" tab for more control.

IE5 for Mac used to be the coolest browser ever...
posted by AmbroseChapel at 3:45 PM on October 6, 2005

You can configure Firefox to periodically look at certain sites and let you know when something changes.

From the Bookmarks Manager window, select the bookmark you want to track and click the Properties button. The next window that appears includes three tabs: Info, Schedule, and Notify.
posted by Lanark at 2:10 AM on October 7, 2005