Can I keep my PC and Mac bookmarks in sync with Mobile Me?

You're running Microsoft Internet Explorer on your Windows 7 system? I'm surprised, there are quite a few superior alternatives that are safer and faster, notably Firefox and Google Chrome. In fact, if you were running Firefox on both systems, you could use Bookmark Sync and Sort or Xmarks, for that matter. Google Chrome has its own bookmark sync system if you use it across multiple computers too, and it's also easy to set up.

You are correct, however, when you suspect that your Mobile Me account can be used to keep the bookmarks in sync between your PC and Mac system. It's a bit tricky to get set up because you have to install and verify Mobile Me on Windows, but once that's done, it should run without any hassles or effort on your part.

To set this up, you'll need to be on your work Windows 7 computer: assuming you already have Mobile Me backing up your browser bookmarks on your Mac, it'll just automatically tap into that data when the time comes.

On your work PC, start out by logging in to Mobile Me at http://www.me.com/:

Once you're in, there should be a link right on the home page inviting you to download the Mobile Me control panel for Windows:

It says "Windows XP or Vista" but I think they just forgot to update it: it works fine with Windows 7 in my experience, so proceed. Click through to the download information page:

Click on the "Download" button on the top right, after you've read the features and disclaimers, if you're so inclined!

I think Apple is a reasonably trusted source, so click on "Run" when Internet Explorer asks you how to proceed, then after a few legal screens to get through without reading (I mean, really, does anyone actually read those novels of legalese??)

Once it's installed, you'll go directly to the preferences screen, where you can log in to your existing Mobile Me account:

Log in and it'll grab all your account information, including what information you're backing up and synchronizing with the Mobile Me servers.

Click on the "Sync" tab along the top to see the details and choose which you'd like to have synchronized with the server:

Here's how I configured my setup, I'm guessing it's probably what you'll want too:

Click "OK" and it should start synchronizing data. Since it's your first sync, you'll eventually see a "woah, lots of data is going to be changed!" error:

That's cool, if you really want to just have your PC mirror your Mac at home, pick Replace Data on Computer:

Otherwise you might want to step through the differences and pick which ones you want from where, one by one. Eventually, it'll do the work:

When it's done, quit and restart Internet Explorer and you should see all the bookmarks you had on your Mac system, neatly synchronized to your Windows computer too!

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