Forum Discussion
*Updated 9/3* Syncing in Microsoft Edge Preview Channels
Syncing your browser data in Microsoft Edge Preview builds
We heard your feedback and are committed to making sync a more reliable feature across devices. We’ve rebuilt our sync experience from the ground up and we’re making extra effort to ensure that sync meets your expectations. Our goal for sync is to ensure that you have a consistent browsing experience when you choose to roam your favorites, passwords, history, and other data across your devices.
*Updated 9/3* What is the current state of sync and what is the road ahead?
- You can now sync Favorites, Settings (preference), Passwords & Form-fill data across Windows devices, and across Microsoft Edge on Android and iOS (instructions below).
- Sync is enabled for both Microsoft accounts (MSA) as well as work or school accounts (AAD).
- Note that AAD sync is only available for AAD premium accounts (SKUs which include Azure Information Protection) and is not yet rolled out for macOS.
- We are working on pending attributes and will be enabling them soon (history, extensions & open tabs)
- As we are building a new system, Edge builds are not expected to sync with earlier versions of Microsoft Edge. You can import your existing favorites from earlier versions of Microsoft Edge.
Enabling sync on PC
When you sign in with your Microsoft account on Microsoft Edge Insider Channels, you’ll get a dialogue asking for consent to enable sync. Once you give the consent, your favorites should start syncing. Note that you can customize the sync behavior from the sync settings page.
PC Sync Settings
Note that some attributes might be disabled on this page. They will be enabled on this page as we enable sync for them.
Enabling sync on Android
Our Microsoft Edge app on Android can now sync with the Microsoft Edge Insider Channels. But first, you’ll need to upgrade to the latest version on Google play.
To sync with Microsoft Insider Channels, sign in with your Microsoft Account, ensure that it is selected as your active account, go to Settings > Account and select your Microsoft account, then select Microsoft Edge Insider Channels > Switch.
After you switch to Microsoft Edge Insider Channels, you will be asked how you want to handle your existing favorites. You can choose to import and sync your existing favorites with Microsoft Edge Insider Channels. If you choose no, your existing favorites will be deleted before sync is enabled.
If you choose to import favorites, when you visit Favorites for the first time, you’ll see all your current favorites and they’ll start syncing with your Microsoft Edge Insider Channels on your PC.
Enabling sync on iOS
We are happy to announce that we have expanded our sync support to iOS. To begin syncing your favorites between you iOS devices and your other Microsoft Edge Insider devices, you must first update Microsoft Edge for iOS to the latest version on iTunes. To sync with the Insider Channels you can follow similar steps as those listed above in the Sync with Android section.
First you will need to sign in with your Microsoft Account, ensure that it is selected as your active account, go to Settings > Account and select your Microsoft account, then select Microsoft Edge Insider Channels > Switch.
After you switch to Microsoft Edge Insider Channels, you will be asked how you want to handle your existing favorites. You can choose to import and sync your existing favorites with Microsoft Edge Insider Channels. If you choose no, your existing favorites will be deleted before sync is enabled.
Once you have completed these steps you will see all of your imported favorites in your favorites list.
What do you think?
We are excited about sync in Microsoft Edge Insider Channels and are very optimistic that we are building it right. However, we want to be sure that sync works across your workflows and browsing scenarios. Please give it a try and let us know how it worked for you. If you run into any issues, use the in-app feedback button to submit the details. If you have other feedback for us about sync, please leave a comment below.
Thank you for trying the new Microsoft Edge.
Hi All,
We have rolled out a fix to the problem where clients were reporting error on sync. We expect an app restart should get the client back into a functional state for sync now. We so much appreciate your patience and willingness to help all this while. Apologies that it took us time to get this fix across to you. If you still see any errors, please submit using in-app feedback button (and drop me a private message so that we jump on it faster). Sincere thanks for working with us on building a better product.
Ankur
CC. @Mike_BNL , @DiggsMcGee , @bassoprofundo , @indospot , @Stephen Berard , @billbyrnes
279 Replies
- Hi maybe this is the wrong place for it, but how do I remove all my favorite bookmarks in edge dev all at once
- OK. Finally got the iPad/ iPhone/ Android Beta/ Win10 Dev/ Mac Cannery all syncing this morning together.
However, when I say syncing, I mean they all appear to work but not all 100% the same version of my faves are showing. - Navigate to manage favorites page (edge://favorites/ or ctrl+shift+O). You can select all existing bookmarks (shift select or just do ctrl +A) and click delete.
I have the latest Canary version on my computer. I have just over 3000 favorites. I set up Edge on my Samsung Android tablet running Android 8.0 and set it to sync. The favorites did sync very fast and work great. On my Samsung Android phone which is also running Andorid 8.0 I set up sync the same way as on my tablet. It started to sync and has now been showing the status of Syncing for over 15 minutes and still hasn't synced anything. What might be the problem?
Thanks
Deleted That is strange, I just added this page to my Favorites Bar on the current Canary version on my computer. Opened my Note 9 which has Android version 9 installed, and when I checked my Favorites, this page was there without a problem and absolutely no delay in the sync process.
It is strange. It works on my Samsung tablet, but not on my Samsung phone running the same version of Android.
Elliot Kirk Just followed the steps this morning and am loving it. Saw another message about Edge Dev crashing while trying to sync, but I have not had any problem at all. Don't know if the speed tier would have anything to do with it but I'm on a Gig tier.
I am having a problem with sync. I have re-installed Edge Developer (Chrome) maybe 5-6 times. The last three times, I get a message at the user icon "Not Syncing) and in the profile "Couldn't connect to the Sync Server, Retrying..."
I followed all the steps above and Edge on my Android is synced okay.
On my PC, I cannot sync unless I connect with a different MS Account that I have, billbyrnes@msn.com.
Any ideas would be appreciated.
Bill Byrnes
We are aware that some users are running into error with sync. We apologize for this. Thanks for your patience, we are actively looking into this. From what we have investigated so far, you might not be able to recover from this error by usual client side actions like restarting or signing out/in. We will post an update once the issue is resolved.
CC. Mike_BNL , @DiggsMcGee , bassoprofundo , indospot , Stephen Berard
Hi All,
We have rolled out a fix to the problem where clients were reporting error on sync. We expect an app restart should get the client back into a functional state for sync now. We so much appreciate your patience and willingness to help all this while. Apologies that it took us time to get this fix across to you. If you still see any errors, please submit using in-app feedback button (and drop me a private message so that we jump on it faster). Sincere thanks for working with us on building a better product.
Ankur
CC. @Mike_BNL , @DiggsMcGee , @bassoprofundo , @indospot , @Stephen Berard , @billbyrnes
Two more that came to me:
- Sync our dictionaries, i.e., when we add new spellings to Edge's database. It's crazy some browsers cannot implement a synced word database in 2019.
- Sync the new tab page favorites. Nothing is more welcoming than all your previously saved favorites showing up on a new system so you can get going immediately.
One neat suggestion for syncing:
- Enable edge://flags syncing between devices, optionally. We make tweaks to the flags and it's confusing copying them between systems.
Chrome doesn't sync chrome://flags and Firefox doesn't sync about:config. That's always been annoying: I would love if Edge beat them at their own game.
I'm still seeing Edge on my Windows 10 PC showing "Not Syncing". In settings I can't update any of the sync settings (it's grayed out) indicating that it can't connect to the sync server.
I'm experiencing this on both of my PC, exact same error.
I have setup my Android phone correctly as well, but that's not syncing for obvious reasons.
I'm running the latest Dev Channel build [Version 75.0.139.4 (Official build) dev (64-bit)]
-Stephen
My favs sync seems to be greyed out. I've sign in/out several times. Uninstalled/ reinstalled several times and nothing. Any ideas? Cheers.
Thanks Drew1903 I had.
Just playing around again, and disabling all blocking on the network and enabling all privacy switchers to ON and is seems to be working now and not greyed out. So maybe it blocked along the line or it's a fluke and after a few reboots etc it started to work.
Being greyed out does make me wonder if I had some deeper level group policy enabled that I was using for the kids accounts and one of the options may have triggered it as I reset all policies back to default, i'm really not sure.
Thanks again for the reply.
Elliot Kirk I've mentioned this in a few threads, but it's been two weeks and sync is still not working for me. Syncing initially worked fine, but since version 75.0.137.0, it consistently tells me it can't connect to the sync server. I reported this two weeks ago in this thread, and last week I sent feedback through the dedicated button.
Today I thought uninstalling and reinstalling the browser might help, but it didn't. I don't know what it is, but it just won't work.
Hi indospot, we have 1:1 help agents that can probably assist you more that I can on this forum. There are links to help on the right side of the forum windows, I have also included the link here: https://microsoftedgesupport.microsoft.com, and select Contact Support.
I really hope that they can get you unblocked quickly.
Thanks,
Elliot
I didnt get the import options when I changed the sync options to the new Edge.
