Most of us will amass quite a large number of bookmarks over time which then makes finding the one you want an odious task. It’s often easier (and quicker) to simply search Google for the site you want rather than scan through a large number of unorganised bookmarks.
However, in Google Chrome it’s quite easy to manage (or organise) your bookmarks into some sort of order that makes using them effortless.
Chrome Bookmarks Basics.
In Google Chrome (as with most browsers) you save web pages as bookmarks. Bookmarks are generally stored on the Bookmarks Bar. That makes them easy to get to when your browsing the web.
How To Add New Bookmarks To Chrome.
When you’re on a webpage and you want to save it as a bookmark, you can either
- Press CTRL and the letter D on your keyboard
- Click the STAR ICON at the very end of the Address Bar.
Whichever way you choose, the Bookmark Added window will open.
By default, Chrome will save your new bookmark onto the Bookmarks Bar.
Click the DONE button to save the bookmark and it will appear on your bookmarks bar.
How To Show The Bookmarks Bar In Google Chrome.
By default, Chrome doesn’t automatically show the Bookmarks Bar. You have to “turn it on”, or enable it yourself. While it’s easy to do, it is mildly annoying.
There are two ways to show the Bookmarks Bar in Chrome.
- Press CTRL and SHIFT and the letter B at the same time on your keyboard.
- Click the 3 vertical dots in the top right-hand corner, then move the pointer onto BOOKMARKS, then click SHOW BOOKMARKS BAR.
Either way, your Bookmarks Bar will appear. Once you’ve enabled it, you won’t have to do this again, it’ll always show.
Hidden (Or Overflow) Bookmarks In Chrome.
The Bookmarks Bar can only hold so many bookmarks before you run out of space. Once the bar is full, it seems that no more bookmarks are being saved. But they are, there’s a kind of “overflow” for the bookmarks that won’t fit on the bar.
It’s called Hidden Bookmarks and is represented by these two chevrons at the end of the Bookmarks Bar.
Click on the chevrons to reveal your hidden (or overflow) bookmarks.
How To Manage (Organise) Your Google Chrome Bookmarks.
As the number of bookmarks that you have grows, the list becomes unwieldy and difficult to use. you simply can’t find the item you’re looking for.
There are many ways in which you can manage your bookmarks in Chrome, from simply organising them on the bookmarks bar, renaming them and saving them into specific folders of related web pages.
How To Move (Or Arrange) Your Bookmarks On The Bookmarks Bar.
The Bookmarks Bar is the place to have your most-used bookmarks because they’re easy and quick to get to. While lesser-used bookmarks can be stored under the hidden bookmarks icon (the chevrons), or within folders.
To move a bookmark you can simply drag and drop it to where you want it to be.
Put your pointer onto the bookmark that you want to move, then hold down the left mouse button.
Now move your mouse (drag) and you’ll see the bookmark follow your movements. When it’s in place, let go of the mouse button (drop)
To help position the bookmark properly, as you move it, you’ll see a straight black line appear on the Bar. The line is where the bookmark will go. All other bookmarks will be shunted left or right along the Bar to make way for it.
Note that the black line that appears is nowhere near as big as in the image shown. It’s actually quite small, so you do have to look for it.
Moving Hidden bookmarks
You can also use drag and drop to move bookmarks from the hidden bookmarks menu onto the Bookmarks Bar, but obviously, as you do this, something else will drop off the Bar to make way for the new entry. It can be a bit like juggling glass bottles to get it right.
To move a bookmark from the hidden bookmarks menu, click on the chevrons at the end of the bar, then drag any item from the menu onto the bar.
How To Delete Bookmarks In Google Chrome.
One quick and easy way to manage your Chrome bookmarks is to just delete any that you don’t use anymore. Simply put, the fewer bookmarks you have, the easier it is to manage the list.
To delete a bookmark, simply right-click on it.
Then on the menu that appears, left-click DELETE.
When you delete an item from the bar, you’ll see all the other bookmarks automatically shuffle along to take its place.
If you’ve created enough space on the bar, then one of your hidden bookmarks will get “promoted” to the end of the bar.
Rename Your Bookmarks To Create Space On The Bar.
Quite often, the web page you’re saving as a bookmark will have an overly long name. Bookmarks with long names obviously take up more space on the bar than those with shorter names.
Another issue is that some of your bookmarks will have a name that doesn’t really make it obvious which website it’s referring to.
When it comes to managing your bookmarks in Google Chrome, you really want short and concise names for your bookmarks. They take up far less space whilst still being instantly recognisable.
As an example, take a look at these two bookmarks.
The first one (as many of you will already know) is for eBay, but it doesn’t say eBay, apparently, it’s “Electronics, Cars, Fa”, whatever Fa is.
And then there’s John Lewis & Partn. That’s a little too long for what it is when space is at a premium.
In Chrome, you can edit, or change, the name of any of your bookmarks, either at the time of adding them or after they’ve been added.
To Edit An Existing Bookmark.
In Google Chrome, to change the name of an existing bookmark, you need to edit it.
Right-click on the bookmark that you want to edit.
On the menu that opens, left-click EDIT.
The Edit Bookmark window will open.
You can type whatever name you want to give to the bookmark into the NAME box.
You can pretty much name it anything you like, but short and descriptive generally works best.
In this example, I’ll change “Electronics, Cars, Fa” to simply eBay
When you’re done, click the SAVE button
Edit Bookmarks As You Save Them
When you’re adding a new bookmark, you can change the name of it in the NAME box.
Again you can call it anything that makes sense to you.
Click the DONE button when you’re ready.
Make Even More Room On Your Bookmarks Bar.
Before we leave the subject of bookmarks names there’s one more trick I want to show you. And that is to do away with the bookmark name altogether.
Many websites use what’s called a favicon. It’s a small image or maybe a shape that represents the website or company.
A lot of these favicons are instantly recognisable.
So much so that you’ll find you don’t actually need to have a name for the bookmark. You’ll just know which website/company it refers to by the favicon.
You can use that to save more space on your crowded bookmarks Bar in Chrome.
To achieve this space-saving miracle when you’re adding a new bookmark, just delete everything inside the name box.
The same can be done for existing bookmarks. Just right-click on one of them, left-click EDIT, then delete everything in the NAME box.
When you’re trying to manage you’re overcrowded bookmarks bar, reducing them to be simply company logos will create a whole lot of extra space.
Organise Your Chrome Bookmarks With Folders.
If like me, you have a lot of bookmarks, then it really does become a challenge to manage them all. In Google Chrome it’s actually rather easy to organise your bookmarks into folders. You can store related bookmarks together in a folder, similar to how you’d store related files in a folder on your PC.
A folder only really takes up the space of a single bookmark on the bar, but it could easily hold 10 or 20 plus bookmarks.
As an example, let’s say you’ve got accounts with Amazon TV and Netflix.
You could easily save both bookmarks into a single folder, along with Youtube, Vimeo, the BBC, and any other video streaming service that you use.
You can obviously do the same for online shopping, online banking, social media, email accounts, etc.
How To Create Bookmarks Folders In Chrome
To create a folder, right-click on the Bookmarks Bar, then on the menu that opens, left-click ADD FOLDER.
That will open the New Folder window.
On the New Folder page, type a name for your folder. Something descriptive of what type of bookmarks are going to go in there.
Tip – try to keep the names short, longer names use up more space on the Bar.
Just below the folder name box, you’ll see two default folders, Bookmarks Bar and Other Bookmarks.
Left-click once on the Bookmarks Bar folder to select it and then click the DONE button.
After you click the DONE button, you’ll return to Chrome.
If your Bookmarks Bar is already full, then you won’t be able to see the folder that you just created. It’ll be in the overflow area.
Click the hidden bookmarks icon (chevrons) and at the bottom of the list, you’ll find your new folder.
Drag and drop it onto the Bookmarks Bar wherever you want it to be positioned.
Using Folders To Manage Bookmarks In Chrome.
Now that you’ve got a folder all you need to do is to drag and drop whichever bookmarks you want to go into the folder.
Put your pointer onto the bookmark in question then hold down the left mouse button.
Drag the bookmark directly onto the folder and then release the mouse button.
Be sure that you are directly on top of the folder before releasing the mouse button.
The bookmark will be moved into the folder.
How To Save New Bookmarks Directly Into Folders.
Now that you’ve got all your current (or existing) bookmarks organised into relevant folders, what about any new bookmarks that you might make.
There are two ways to do it. Firstly, you can simply save the bookmark to the bar and then drag and drop it into the relevant folder. This works fine and is my preferred method.
However, you can save new bookmarks directly into the folder that you want to store them in.
When you’re adding a new webpage as a bookmark by clicking the STAR icon or pressing CTRL + D, the Bookmark Added window opens. Just below the name of the website, you’ll see the FOLDERS box. By default, Google Chrome will save new bookmarks to the Bookmarks Bar.
To save it into a different folder, click the downward-facing arrowhead then click the folder of your choice.
Quick Note.
The only slight issue with this is that Chrome will “remember” which folder you saved your bookmark into. So the next time you try to add a new bookmark, it will save into the last folder that you used.
So you have to get used to checking (and changing, if necessary) exactly which folder the bookmark is going to go into before clicking the DONE button.
If you make a mistake, it’s easily rectified by dragging the offending bookmark from the “wrong” folder and dropping it into the “right” folder. But I have temporarily “lost” the occasional bookmark until I’ve realised what I’ve done.
Renaming & Deleting Bookmark Folders In Google Chrome.
Over time you may find that you want to either change the name of a particular folder or even delete it completely.
You can easily rename or delete any of your bookmark folders in Chrome.
Right-click on a folder and on the menu that appears either click RENAME or DELETE.
Please note that deleting a folder will delete all the bookmarks inside that folder
Summary
Managing (or organising) a large collection of bookmarks can take some time and a little planning, but in Google Chrome it’s not difficult to do, and the results are well worth the effort.
This guide deals specifically with managing your bookmarks in Google Chrome. If you want a more complete guide to using Chrome, setting the Home page, Start page and other settings in Chrome, then click here How To Set Up Google Chrome.
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