BookmarkDesk User Manual

Installation

Visit the Chrome Web Store, Firefox Add-ons, or Edge Add-ons
Click Add to browser and confirm the permissions
Pin the extension icon to your toolbar for quick access

How It Works

BookmarkDesk reads and writes your browser's own bookmarks directly — nothing is imported or copied. Anything you create, move, rename, or delete here lands on your browser bookmarks immediately, and changes made in the browser show up here right away. Uninstalling leaves nothing behind.

Opening the Desk

Click the toolbar icon to open or close the side panel. It does not take over your new tab page or inject anything into web pages.

Widen the side panel — the board view then fits more columns at once
Open in a tab — click the expand button next to the search box, or right-click the toolbar icon and choose Open in a tab. The side panel closes, and if the tab is already open you are taken straight to it. You can also set Click to open to Tab under Settings → General

Root Tabs

The tabs at the top of the side panel match your browser's bookmark roots (Toolbar, Other, Mobile, Menu); which ones appear depends on the browser. Hold a dragged item over a tab for a moment to switch to it.

Search

Start typing as soon as the side panel opens. Search covers the names and addresses of all your bookmarks.

Separate several words with spaces; a result must match all of them
Use the arrow keys to pick a result and Enter to open it. Press / to jump back to the search box at any time, and Esc to clear it
Right-click a result and choose Show location to jump to where it sits, highlighted

Two Views

Choose the default view in Settings → Features.

Tree view — expands level by level; the fastest way to locate a particular bookmark
Board view — lays folders out as columns, so moving items takes no expanding and collapsing

Tree View

Whether clicking a bookmark opens it in a new tab or the current one is set by Click behavior in Settings; when the desk itself is in a tab, bookmarks always open in a new tab

Board View

Each folder under the current tab takes a column, headed by its bookmark count; loose bookmarks are gathered into the last column
Subfolders inside a column appear as collapsible blocks. Deeper levels show their name only and are left to the tree view
Board layout can be List or Compact; Compact fits more items on one screen

Drag to Organize

Drag any bookmark or folder to move it. A highlighted line or frame shows where it will land, and releasing writes the move straight back to your browser bookmarks.

Drop between two items — inserts at that position; within one level, this is reordering
Drop onto a folder — moves the item into that folder
Drag to the edge of a list — scrolls automatically
Across columns — in board view, drag straight from one column to another

Creating, Editing and Deleting

Create — right-click a folder or an empty spot in the view and choose New bookmark or New folder. The new item is added at the end
Rename and edit — hover over an item and click the rename button at the end of the row to rename in place; right-click and choose Edit to change a bookmark's address as well
Delete — a single bookmark is deleted right away; deleting a folder tells you how many bookmarks are inside and asks you to confirm

Open All and Sort

Both are on a folder's right-click menu. Sorting is also available by right-clicking an empty spot in the view, for the current level.

Open all — opens the bookmarks directly inside the folder, in the current window or a new one. More than 15 asks you to confirm first
Sort (Pro) — orders the items directly inside by name or by date added (newest first), with folders first. You can undo it right after

Badges

In both views and in search results, items carry badges, each of which can be turned on or off in Features settings:

Dup — another bookmark points to the same address
Empty — the folder is empty
New — added in the last 7 days

Click a Dup or Empty badge to go straight to the matching cleanup page.

Features Page

Duplicates

Bookmarks that share an address are listed in groups, and each group keeps the earliest added one by default. Click another bookmark in a group to keep it instead, or skip the whole group. Bulk cleanup is a Pro feature: it asks you to confirm first, and can be undone while the Trash is on.

Empty Folders

All empty folders are listed and selected by default. Delete them, and undo right after if needed.

Trash (Pro)

Once turned on in Settings → Features, bookmarks and folders deleted anywhere in the browser are kept in the Trash, ready to restore or clear for good. The Trash stays on this device, and expired items are cleaned up automatically.

Site Icons

Chrome, Edge — icons come straight from the browser's own icon cache. Nothing to configure, and no network request is made
Firefox — the browser does not expose its icon cache to extensions, so letter tiles are shown by default. Turn on Site icons in Settings and grant permission to have icons supplied by a third-party icon service. Sites with no icon of their own keep their letter tile

Settings

Features

Show address when unnamed — a bookmark without a name shows its address instead
Enable Trash (Pro) — once on, set the retention days, folder restore mode and orphan bookmark folder

FAQ

I changed a bookmark in the browser and the side panel did not update

The side panel follows automatically, but while you are dragging or renaming, refreshes wait until you finish so your work is not interrupted

Nothing happens when I release a drag

If the drop position is not valid — dragging a folder into itself, for example — everything stays as it was

Can I get deleted bookmarks back?

With the Trash on, restore them from the Trash on the Features page. With it off, deletions cannot be undone, and cleaning up duplicates warns you about this first