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The file you save when you export your Favorites is a perfectly usable set of links. It's a Web page all on its own.
  technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

How to import your Web-site Favorites


July 25, 2001


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2001, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2001, The Syracuse Newspapers

   Last week I told you how to save your Internet Explorer Favorites. They're saved in a single file that you can store safely away somewhere (on a floppy disk, for example).
   You can find last week's article on the Technofile Web site at www.twcny.rr.com/technofile. Browse the site -- you'll see nearly 1,000 of my articles on computers, software, audio, video and other topics -- or use this direct link: twcny.rr.com/technofile/texts/bit071801.html.
   This week I'll explain how to restore your Favorites after you've saved them. You'll also see how you can add someone else's stored Favorites to your own Web browser's list.
   Saving your Favorites in a file is a great idea. Normally, each Favorite -- each Web-page shortcut, in other words -- is a separate file in Windows. If you have a lot of Favorites, you end up with a lot of files. The more you have, the harder it is to save them or make sense out of them.
   That's where the genius of Microsoft's "Export Favorites" really shines. By saving your Favorites (or "exporting" them, in technospeak) to a single file, you can take that file and store it somewhere, and you can even send it to your sister-in-law as an an attachment in e-mail.
   Best of all, there is a big benefit of this single file full of Favorites. The file you save when you export your Favorites is a perfectly usable set of links. It's a Web page all on its own. Double clicking on it opens it up in any Web browser (not just Internet Explorer).
   That means your friends who run Netscape can use your Favorites if you save them in a file and attach that file in e-mail. Is that cool or what?
   It also means you can open that single file full of Favorites at any time and use it just as you would use any list of hyperlinks. I do this a lot. I find a single Web page full of links very easy to manage.
   And now for the easiest part. To bring back the Favorites that you saved (or to turn someone else's saved Favorites into your own), just click the "File" menu in Internet Explorer. Click "Import and Export." Click the "Next" button and click on "Import Favorites." Then click "Next."
   Locate the file you had saved using the "Browse" button and double click on it when you locate it.
   You're done. The Favorites that are in the saved file will appear in your regular Favorites list, and the saved file will still be around. ("Import" just copies them. They're not disturbed otherwise.)