Import sources

Which browsers Lilo can import from and what comes along from each one: bookmarks, open tabs, history, sign-ins and extensions, never passwords.

Which browsers Lilo imports from, what it brings from each, and what it leaves behind. To run an import, see Import from another browser; you can start one later from Settings > General > Import from another browser.

Browsers and data

Lilo offers a browser only when the app is installed on your Mac (a beta, dev, canary or nightly build counts) and it finds that browser’s data. Safari is offered whenever its data folder exists.

Every browser above Safari is built on Chromium. Each browser profile is listed on its own, and you pick which kinds of data to bring from each. The first profile you pick goes into the profile and Space you are using; each further profile gets a Lilo profile of its own, named after the browser and the profile, so their sign-ins stay apart.

What each kind brings

Bookmarks. The bookmarks bar becomes pinned tabs of the Space, and every other bookmark goes into one collapsed pinned folder, named “Other Bookmarks (Chrome)” for Chrome and likewise for the others. Folders keep their nesting down to five levels; anything deeper joins the fifth.

Open tabs. The tabs of the browser’s last session come in as tabs of the Space, and its pinned tabs as pinned tabs. Safari’s pinned tabs are not imported as pinned. A tab group of a Chromium-based browser becomes a folder.

• Arc: each Arc Space becomes a Lilo Space with its pinned and unpinned tabs, Arc’s favorites become favorites, and an Arc split view becomes a split view. Only web pages come: a tab of Arc’s sidebar showing a file:// address, or any other that is not http or https, is left out.
• Zen: each workspace becomes a Lilo Space, and its essentials become favorites.

History. The most recent 50,000 pages you visited, with their titles and visit counts.

Stay signed in. The browser’s cookies, so you stay signed in to your sites. For a Chromium-based browser, macOS asks whether Lilo may use the browser’s key in your keychain: choose Allow. Cookies that have expired are skipped.

Extensions. Lilo lists the profile’s extensions that come from the Chrome Web Store, and reinstalls the ones you choose from the store. Extensions pinned to the browser’s toolbar stay pinned, in the same order, after any Lilo already had.

From Chromium-based browsers, Firefox and Zen, the site icons of what you import come along, so tabs show them before they load; from Safari they do not. Only http and https pages are imported, with one exception: the open tabs of a Chromium-based browser also bring local files (file://). Running an import again into the same Space adds only what is new there: a bookmark or tab that Space already has is not added twice, and a page already in the profile’s history is merged with it. Importing into another Space adds the bookmarks and tabs again.

What is never imported

• Passwords, from any browser. Lilo has no password manager of its own: add a password manager extension, as Extensions explains.
• Extensions from Safari, Firefox and Zen, and extensions that do not come from the Chrome Web Store.
• Safari’s Reading List.
• A browser’s own pages, and local files other than the open tabs of a Chromium-based browser.

Full Disk Access

macOS keeps some browser data behind its privacy protection; Safari’s folder is the usual case. When Lilo cannot read a browser’s data, that browser shows Allow access:

1. Click Allow access. System Settings opens on Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access, with a small panel beside it.
2. Turn Lilo on in the list. If Lilo is not listed, drag the icon from the panel into the list.
3. Lilo comes back to the front and looks for your browsers again.

Lilo needs Full Disk Access only to read those files, on your Mac. What you import stays on your Mac, except the ids of the extensions you chose to reinstall, which go to the Chrome Web Store (clients2.google.com) to download them.