I'm stuck.
I have accumulated a decent set of browser bookmarks, both in the browser and in my notes. And I need to combine them somehow, comb a little and structure the whole set to make it more accessible. Like, tools, articles, documentation, whatnot.
Currently, I use default browser bookmarking capabilities and divide links by topics (in a deeply nested way). I don't use any specific tools, though I had taken a look at a bunch of them and didn't stop at anything.
What is your way of keeping your bookmarks in order? What tools do you use? How do you structure the whole system? What is your approach to fast access and synchronization?
Oldest comments (120)
I use the browser's built-in bookmark tools and don't keep very many bookmarks.
I know this probably isn't the answer you were looking for, but...
I use qlearly ⚡
So you keep a set of boards, right? How do you structure them? What's your approach to getting the necessary stuff out of it as fast as possible?
I just have two boards: Work and Personal. Under Personal I have just 3 columns: News, Tools, and Deals. Under Work, categorized all the links based on the Environment :).
Looks interesting actually. I'll give it a try definitely. Thanks a lot for sharing that! 👍
Poorly
🙌
My biggest concern is that I jump from Chrome to Safari and back! shrugs
Yep! Exactly! I use a couple of browsers too and it would be very convenient to have a sync'able approach to bookmarks management
Very very very poorly too :( it's a mess!
Same here!! It's so bad
Same for me until I took the matter in my own hands..
I actually don't have a lot of items, but I like to keep a few shortcuts:
Everything else is throw into folders,
You can also try use the
chrome://bookmarks(url) to better visualize your bookmarks.The
folderspart is the trickiest one actually) I have a pile of information (mostly useful but not structured in an effective way) in them. I use the corresponding browser tools like a pro already, but it doesn't help very much.Yes, I'd tried that, but without a system it's useless. I'm ready to pay for a subscription if it proves to be a decent working option
Default chrome bookmarks worked very well for me.
I have more then 30+ website managed in bookmark folders & synced in devices with my google account.
You are a very organized person I would say!) my numbers much higher
It's not a very fast way. I'd tried Notion, including the web clipper (and Evernote too). I don't like it personally, and it's too slow for me.
Promo video looks interesting, thanks!) Will try that in Chrome
I'd recommend Pocket (getpocket.com/). It's now owned by Mozilla and allows you to save pages as you would bookmarks, but with added features. Pages can be stored for offline reading, you add multiple tags to pages (more powerful than using a folder structure), and there are browser extensions across all the main browsers, plus good Android and iOS apps. And it's all free!
I use pocket a lot for reading, but didn’t think about it as a bookmark manager. Thanks for the idea, I’ll try to test the concept 👍
I switched to Shaarli this past year. Installation was a piece of cake, I threw it in a subfolder on my personal Wordpress site.
There is a Chrome extension to add bookmarks, and also a cli tool. I use a Shortcut on my iPhone that uses the cli tool to add bookmarks from my phone.
Shaarli uses tags for organization, so it's really easy to organize links as I add them. So far I have 599 links saved since July 15.
There are two other features I like. One, is that bookmarks can be made public, so you can easily share them with others, and two, RSS feeds can be generated from searches, or tags.
The true dev approach to bookmarking 👍 thanks for sharing, I’ll dive into that
I was also using shaarli for the better part of a year. I've never found a good solution since del.icio.us fell away back in the day. Someone brought back the idea that was original del.icio.us it's now known as Pinboard. Highly recommended. If that's not your deal the bookmarking abilities of Notion are pretty profound, reminds me of old school Evernote before feature-creep almost killed the company. Good luck in your search!
Edit: just saw your responses about notion and that makes me suggest to you Pinboard even more.
They've chosen a very original target market - "social bookmarks for introverts") But anyway, it looks interesting and distraction-free. I'll play with this service, thanks a lot 👍
I did a Pinboard with a11y dev articles and best practice, I'm sure the target market of pinterest, will never use my board but I made it for me first, to have a place to find the articles in one go insted of the bookmarks that I also have (with the same links); then if someone want to use it is ok for me, I agreed that normaly noone will go and search pinterest for a11y articles or links, however my intend it was to find other solution for bookmarks. And it work for my personal preferences.
I keep my mind and ears open for more sutible solution if anyone has it let me know. 🤓
same here ^
Hi @EliodRän!
Charles here. Have you found a good bookmark app to solve your problems? If not I am working on a new bookmark app that will combine notes and bookmarks and I would like to have a quick chat with you about what problems you are facing with existing apps and possibly become a early adopter for my app.
If you are interested DM me here on Dev.to or send me an email charles@charlesthecoder.dev :)
Thanks.
Using Shaarli past 5 years and is great, currently evaluating linkding.
Looks a little heavy, what are the advantages of linkding over Shaarli?
Shaarli is better.
First impressions here, but that does not sound secure.
There are .htaccess files in the appropriate folders to stop any rando from downloading the bookmarks files. Unless I'm missing something else you found. 😃
raindrop.io
flat folder structure for free. If you want nested folder structure you need a paid account.
Is it worth it? How does it help you as compared to default browser way?
Its the same a default browser but you can have the extension in multiple browsers without the need of exporting/importing bookmarks. You bookmark once and have it anywhere you have the extension installed.
Yeah, probably I need to try the paid account to work with their nesting functionality. The way you describe it looks very promising. Thanks, Gilberto!
At the beginning, it was with chrome bookmark and for important article I saved them in pocket. It practical because offline but a flat architecture become quickly a mess.
I just migrate to raindrop.io
And having a hierarchical structure I found it more useful. At this time I appreciate it.
The bulk of my bookmarks are in Pinboard with appropriate tags. Frequent bookmarks and stuff I want easy reference to in the bookmark toolbar, and a few other folders and stuff that have kind of grown organically.
There's an extension for Chrome that I use occasionally to sync (one-way) to a folder in the browser's bookmarks. Allocated into sub-folders by tag. (I really wish there was something similar for Firefox!!!)
I use xBrowserSync to keep bookmarks synchronised between my Firefox and Chrome browsers. (I really miss Xmarks.)
I remember using Xmarks too, it was a convenient service. Though it didn't solve all the problems, as well as today's tools.
What are today's tools?
I use the aforementioned xBrowserSync, and keep an eye on Floccus but neither are as good as Xmarks was IMO.
There are three types of bookmarks, some mentioned already. One is something to read later, and pocket is good for this. Two is a standard bookmark, and there's no good cross browser solution for this. Raindrop is okay. Third is a session manager, and there's also no cross browser solution for this.
Totally agree with you. There's no really good solution currently, at least not for me(
There're obvious patterns, but most of them have their tradeoffs. I need some kind of bookmarking stevejobs to invent something different)
I'm just using default Chrome bookmarks and I use this plugin:
chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/...
But I use different tools also, for example I don't really bookmark news sites or blogs, I exclusively use Inoreader for that. Also when I have links related to projects, I usually import them into OneNote.
Currently, I use macOS' Notes app to store my projects' links separately too. But I see having some kind of a store for all the bookmarks as a better solution. Single source of truth lowers cognitive load very much, not only in programming)
Bookmarks sidebar extension looks like a great simplifier for working with Chrome bookmarks. Thanks, I'll try that!
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