Small icons in Safari sidebar

I think I may have figured out the solve! I'm on macOS 26.1 (Tahoe), and Safari 26.1

At the top of the Bookmarks menu, if you click the 3-dot menu, you can change your preferences. It's odd that this isn't something accessible to change in the Safari settings menu.

Screenshot of the 3-dot menu to the right of Bookmarks when you expand the sidebar

Screenshot of what the 3-dot menu is. I changed to compact and turned off Folders on Top and got back close to my previous view. Hope this helps!

UPDATE: For those of us on Sequoia, and unhappy with safari 26, you might want to look at FitzltEng’s reply in this thread. You can lay Sequoia in place over the Sequoia with safari 26.0.1 to end up back on Sequoia with safari 18.6 without a system wipe and reinstall.

I cannot upgrade to Tahoe, so I have no idea if that step will work on Tahoe. But if it won’t work on Tahoe, then you may still want to provide feedback to apple.

Please see Feedback - Safari - Apple.

leodavinci1 wrote:

Since the latest update to Sequoia 15.7 and Safari 26.0.1, the Bookmarks Sidebar is showing all my bookmark folders as text and small icons that resemble an App "folder" in iOS/iPad OS. When I go into a bookmarks folder, all the bookmarks inside it appear a similar way... only with a larger icon. This is untenable. I have folders with hundreds of bookmarks. In addition, all the individual bookmarks that were not in folders are no longer showing up. How do I change the sidebar back to the way it originally appeared with a generic folder icon?

with safari 26, for those on Tahoe, there are a couple possible solutions in this discussion. but for those of us on sequoia, we are basically SOL.

And what about my unorganized bookmarks.

the inability to drag and drop bookmarks to reorganize them is also my biggest issue with safari 26. the only thing we can do is let apple know our feelings. maybe if enough people voice their concerns, apple will fix these issues.

please visit Feedback - Safari - Apple

UPDATE:

please see 6x6's reply in this discussion. if you are comfortable using terminal, their suggestion fixes things for those of us on sequoia with safari 26.0.1.

cierrabrooke wrote:

I think I may have figured out the solve! I'm on macOS 26.1 (Tahoe), and Safari 26.1

At the top of the Bookmarks menu, if you click the 3-dot menu, you can change your preferences. It's odd that this isn't something accessible to change in the Safari settings menu.

yes, that is the fix for people using Tahoe. but for those of us on sequoia (like the OP of this discussion) there are not those dots to show the options. we need to use one of the other options previously posted to change the bookmarks' many issues.