“SafariBookmarksSyncAgent quit unexpectedly” is an error message that could sometime appear on Mac computers while the user is browsing the Internet on their Safari browser. Some users even report that this issue may occur even if/when they aren’t using Safari at all.
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User Complaints “SafariBookmarksSyncAgent quit unexpectedly”
In most cases, once the error starts appearing, it keeps popping-up and nagging the user no matter how many times the latter clicks on the Ignore button. Most people report that the error message re-appears every 10 or so seconds once the previous one has been ignored. Some users seem to still be able to use their browser while the error notification is displayed on the screen.
There could be different causes of this problem, but in almost all cases the reason behind the SafariBookmarksSyncAgent quit unexpectedly error has something to do with compatibility issues. If you are concerned that the cause of this error is malware in your system, there’s no need to panic as this is most likely not the case.
Researchers suggest that what likely triggers the SafariBookmarksSyncAgent quit unexpectedly message is a compatibility conflict between a certain browser component/add-on and the SIP (System Integrity Protection) feature. SIP is a macOS protection feature introduced with the El Capitan macOS release – it was around the time of the release of El Capitan that users first stated experiencing the SafariBookmarksSyncAgent quit unexpectedly.
What SIP does is it blocks the access to certain system files and settings so that potentially malicious apps cannot access and modify them. However, sometimes non-harmful apps/browser extensions may need to access such files and settings in order to function properly. Since SIP doesn’t allow this to happen, the outcome is the display of the SafariBookmarksSyncAgent quit unexpectedly error message.
Below, we will show you a possible way to make this irritating issue disappear.
How to stop the “SafariBookmarksSyncAgent quit unexpectedly” error from appearing
- First, you will have to temporarily disable SIP. To do this, in the Menu Bar, click on the Apple icon and select Restart.
- Now, hold down the Command + R buttons – this will reboot your Mac into Recovery Mod.
- Once the computer starts again, go to Utilities > Terminal.
- In Terminal, type the following command: csrutil disable.
- Hit Enter to execute the command and wait for it to complete.
- Restart your Mac and go to this folder: /System/Library/CoreServices/SafariSupport.bundle/Contents/MacOS/.
- Delete SafariBookmarksSyncAgent by moving it to Trash (this file is protected by SIP so unless you first disable this protection, you won’t be able to delete the file).
- Finally, don’t forget to re-enable SIP – this is a very important security feature for macOS and should not be left deactivated because, otherwise, your Mac may get exposed to danger. To re-enable SIP, repeat steps 1-4 but when you get to the Terminal, type csrutil enable (instead of csrutil disable) and execute the command by hitting the Enter button.
- Finally, restart your Mac one more time and you should be good to go. Hopefully, the “SafariBookmarksSyncAgent quit unexpectedly” would no longer appear while you are using your Safari browser.
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