ICloud tabs sync wont work

rusipka

it fails to get open tabs and tab groups from iCloud and I see only ones I opened in Orion.

If I open new window on iPhone, it wont appear in my windows list.
But tab opened on iPhone seen in dock:

If clicked, this tab opens in any active orion window.

I expected behaviour similar to Safari - syncing between windows and opend tabs.

Here's my settings:
Orion and Mac

iPhone

Orion Version 0.99.119-beta (WebKit 615.1.1)
MacBook Air (macOS Monterey 12.5.1 build 21G83)
iPhone MLJ43AH/A iOS 16.0 (20A362)

rusipka

sorry for this much pics i coulndt get them undercut

Vlad

rusipka

it fails to get open tabs and tab groups from iCloud and I see only ones I opened in Orion.

Can you explain what do you mean by this?

rusipka

Vlad

basically what I am saying is that this feature wont work

i dont see any tabs \ windows from safari
all my settings suggest they re stored in iCloud.

Vlad

rusipka Orion can not show tab groups from Safari, like Safari can not show tab groups from Orion. Although both use iCloud to sync, every app has its own "bucket" in iCloud, where this data is stored (this is by iCloud design and for security reasons).

Orion will show tabs from Orion on all your devices, and Safari will show you tabs only from Safari.

deniz

This is actually not accurate, the tabs of Safari in desktop are saved under:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Safari/CloudTabs.db
in an SQLite database. It's trivial to read and display this and make it convenient for users to switch between browsers. I could have a stab at implementing this, however, I noticed, unfortunately, Orion is not open source.

I think this would be a great addon to the desktop Orion.

dino

deniz You can easily Import Safari tab groups to Orion using File -> Import From -> Safari

Import and Sync both are different in terms of functionality.

Import -> You can import other browser data to Orion (History, Bookmarks, Open Tabs or Tab Groups etc)
Sync -> You can sync Orion data (Bookmarks, Tabs, Passwords etc) on all of your devices (devices signed-in with same AppleID) using iCloud

deniz

Let me clarify, it's my understanding that, the OP, @rusipka (and personally, myself), wants to see a list of tabs they have open in other devices that are on Safari (@rusipka please correct me if I misunderstood). This doesn't have to be 'iCloud Sync' but it will indeed provide the requested functionality so that the user can see their tabs on (all) Safari instances (iPhone, iPad, Macs, etc..). An app that provides this functionality already exists;

https://github.com/josh-/CloudyTabs

It would be trivial to add this to Orion, where the tabs are shown (as read-only), under the Windows Menu. The tabs are conveniently stored in SQLite database. As for the update of the list, I am not sure if it's updated via Safari or as a service but I would assume it would be part of SafariCloudHistoryPushAgent, if that is the case, there is table called CloseRequests which means you can actually implement the whole functionality.

Vlad

deniz It would not be trivial but it is possible. However we do not see value in showing open tabs from a different browser in Orion. It would be very weird for Safari to show open tabs from Orion. Since Orion exists both on desktop and mobile apple devices, our premise is that the Orion user will be using Orion browser on these devices, not Safari. Hence Orion is interested in syncing and showing Orion tabs.

deniz

Since Safari is a system level browser and Orion is browser under heavy-development, it would be beneficial to add the possibility for users who are 'migrating' but want to keep Safari as their go-to browser for the time being, I for one am in this camp.

I understand your reasoning. I checked if it would be possible to provide this via an extension but the security model restricts local file access. This leaves only a seperate application, like the one I linked, as a possible solution.

You might want to change the wording btw, as I also thought you provided Safari sync, maybe reword 'Same as Safari' to clarify you sync between Orion browsers on all devices.

Vlad

deniz The argument is sensibe, but we'd rather spent time and resources fixing things that prevent people from using Orion as their main browser. For me and thousands others, it is already.

askunk

My Orion browser doesn't want to sync new bookmarks with Safari (and viceversa). All icloud settings and browser settings are correct.

Please help.

Vlad

askunk Orion is not supposed to sync bookmarks with Safari.