The Complete Guide to Organizing Your Messy Chrome Bookmarks
Woe to the Chrome user who has a bookmark bar full, or worse, the only folder they use to store everything they see online.
Organizing bookmarks in Chrome is a headache. And if you’re not in the know, you will soon find that you have links to months to go by and don’t have the time (or interest) to do so. It is difficult to fix this, but possible. In this guide, I’ll share a few tricks you can use to keep yourself from overwhelming yourself with bookmarks, and what to do if you’ve already done so.
Try the tagging feature in Chrome
Google Chrome doesn’t actually have a built-in ability to add tags to your bookmarks for easier organization. Firefox does this, which makes us jealous (and curious as to why Google hasn’t implemented a simple customization in Chrome). While you can probably find all sorts of extensions that include some sort of bookmark tagging feature in Chrome, you don’t need them.
Instead, whenever you add a new bookmark in Chrome (using CTRL + D or the asterisk icon in the address bar), just add whatever tags you want to the site name, for example:
Now when you open Chrome’s Bookmark Manager (CTRL + SHIFT + O), you can simply search your hashtag to find relevant sites, or simply type the hashtag into Chrome’s address bar, which should also highlight the sites you’ve previously tagged.
Don’t even use text
If you have several sites that you visit almost daily and you can recognize their icons, then you do not need to refer to them by name in the crowded bookmark bar. Edit the bookmark and remove the name entirely so that you only have an icon that should allow you to package even more links to the specified storage location. (Of course, this works with bookmarks in folders too, but it’s less practical.)
If the sites you bookmark don’t have icons, you can always use the extension to create your own . Or, if you are lazy, just use your favorite emoticon as the “name” for the site. You will still see the uglier blank page icon to the left of it in the bookmarks bar, but that’s something.
Create schema
If you just want to stick to the basics – bookmarks and folders – then you have to create some kind of scheme to keep yourself organized for your own sake and your sanity. And not only do you have to stick with the plan you choose (just drag and drop sites like Facebook or Twitter into your “social media” folder, or whatever you have to finish by the deadline in your “To Do” folder), but you also have there is to be honest and review these folders regularly so that they are not crammed to the brim with outdated links.
Bookmark sites like your closet. If you haven’t worn it in the last year or two (or visited it, in the case of your browser), chances are you are not going to do this, and it might be time to say goodbye forever and delete the bookmark. While Chrome’s Bookmark Manager can help by sorting your saved sites by name, it won’t do so by the date they were added (unfortunately).
Use extensions to keep track of your bookmark clutter
Sometimes you just need a little extra help to manage your bookmarks. And there are tons of extensions you can use to help you organize a little bit. These include, in no particular order:
- Recent Bookmarks is a great extension for organizing your bookmarks by age, and can help you decide what to view, what to keep, and what to delete. (You can adjust the number of bookmarks in the extension’s list on its options screen, and remove bookmarks directly from the extension’s list.)
- Supersorter – Be careful with this as you can’t go back if you let Supersorter do wonders for your bulging bookmarked folders. However, I love how it can automatically sort bookmarks by name and tidy up your browser by removing duplicates and clearing bookmark folders. While it would be great if it could sort chronologically as well, it’s still decently useful if you need your browser to handle a little more of your organization for you.
- Ate – let ‘s go. This extension can automatically sort sites in the Bookmark Bar, in the Other Bookmarks folder and in the Mobile Bookmarks folder, and in all subfolders by name, bookmark date, or their URL. If you need a little more than the physical appeal of bookmarks but don’t have duplicate bookmarks or other annoying problems to manage, this might be the extension for you.
Try to go to the tab
We’ve covered a few useful extensions you can use to organize your bookmarks and open tabs in a meaningful way, including OneTab and Toby , but there are many other extensions you can use to center your must-read bookmarks (so you can view and delete them later. or at least not forget that they exist). Others you can try include:
- A simple new tab page is a great way to see the bookmarks bar, other bookmarks, and most recently added bookmarks in any new tab that is open.
- Speed Dial 2 New Tab – While Speed Dial 2 isn’t directly focused on delivering a list of bookmarks every time you open a new tab, the extension does make it easy to pin your most visited sites to any new tab page you open. In addition, you can use the sidebar on hover to quickly scan (and search for) your bookmark bar, the Other Bookmarks folder, and any other folders you use to sort sites. (And if you just want a sidebar for your bookmarks and that’s it, check out the bookmarks sidebar extension.)
Manage your bookmarks externally
If you don’t even want to deal with bookmarks in the browser – at least not in the usual way – you can always transfer your bookmarks to a third-party service. And there are plenty to choose from: Pocket , (expensive) Pinboard , Evernote , Diigo , Pinterest … the list goes on. (And don’t forget about save.io , a unique service that lets you save bookmarks to the cloud without the need for any special extensions or bookmarklets, period.)
As an added bonus, you can probably combine a number of these services with the handy IFTTT trigger, which also allows you to send new bookmarks you save to other locations – as an email so you don’t forget about them, or on a Google Sheet. which keeps track of whatever you want to keep, and so on.