How to get a list of URLs from an defined bookmark’s folder in Safari

I had this same idea a few months ago. I came up with a solution that works, using Ruby.

I use this gist to parse the Safari Reading List plist file: https://gist.github.com/andphe/3232343

Then I use the ruby Pocket gem to add each item to Pocket.

In the end, I went with Pinboard instead of Pocket, and I have a working project up on github that does exactly that, except using Pinboard.

The example code that you'd benefit from is: https://github.com/prokizzle/pinboard_tools/blob/master/lib/srl_to_pinboard.rb

What you'd ideally do to make it automatic is have Hazel monitor the Safari Reading List plist file for changes, and then run the ruby script if it's recently modified. That way, every item will make it from SRL to your read later service of choice.

Hope that helps.

Here is an AppleScript that should help you. Open AppleScript Editor and save this as a script. I have modified the source that I found here to support taking arguments on the command line.

Use it like this:

osascript new_window.scpt http://www.google.com http://www.stackoverflow.com

Of course, replace the URLs above with your own URLs.

new_window.scpt

on run argv
    tell application "Safari"
        if (count argv) = 0 then
            -- If you dont want to open a new window for an empty list, replace the
            -- following line with just "return"
            set {first_url, rest_urls} to {"", {}}
        else
            -- `item 1 of ...` gets the first item of a list, `rest of ...` gets
            -- everything after the first item of a list.  We treat the two
            -- differently because the first item must be placed in a new window, but
            -- everything else must be placed in a new tab.
            set {first_url, rest_urls} to {item 1 of argv, the rest of argv}
        end if

        make new document at end of documents with properties {URL:first_url}
        tell window 1
            repeat with the_url in rest_urls
                make new tab at end of tabs with properties {URL:the_url}
            end repeat
        end tell
        activate
    end tell
end run

You could even create an alias for this in Terminal and be able to use it easier. I would add the following to ~/.bash_profile:

alias newwindow='osascript /path/to/new_window.scpt'

Call newwindow whatever you want. Save .bash_profile and restart Terminal for it to work.

In case anyone is looking for a similar solution for Google Chrome, here is a different take on the same idea.

chrome_new_window.scpt

on run argv
    tell application "Google Chrome"
        if (count argv) = 0 then
            make new window
        else
            tell (make new window)
                set URL of active tab to item 1 of argv
                repeat with the_url in the rest of argv
                    open location the_url
                end repeat
            end tell
        end if
        set active tab index of first window to 1
        activate
    end tell
end run