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, nothing is copied, and no separate system is created. Every bookmark you create, move, rename, or delete here lands on your browser bookmarks immediately; conversely, changes you make in the browser's own bookmark manager show up here right away.

Uninstalling leaves nothing behind. Your bookmarks are still the same bookmarks.

Opening the Desk

Click the BookmarkDesk icon in your toolbar to open the side panel, and click it again to close. It does not take over your new tab page and injects nothing into web pages.

Widen the side panel — pulling it wider while you tidy up lets the board view show 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, to see the same bookmarks in a full tab. The side panel closes, and if the tab is already open you are taken straight to it

Root Tabs

The row of tabs at the top of the side panel corresponds to your browser's bookmark roots — Toolbar, Other, Mobile, and Menu. Which ones appear depends on the browser you use. Click a tab to switch to that branch; holding a dragged item over a tab for a moment switches to it as well.

Search

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

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 its root, with its folders expanded and the item highlighted

Two Views

Both views show the same bookmarks; only the arrangement differs. Choose the default view in Settings → Features.

Tree view — for finding things. The hierarchy is laid out plainly, expanding level by level; this is the fastest way to locate a particular bookmark
Board view — for sorting things out. Folders are laid out side by side as columns, so several are in view at once and moving items around takes no expanding and collapsing

Tree View

Click a folder name or the arrow in front of it to expand or collapse it
Click a bookmark to open it; where it opens is governed by Click behavior in Settings
Only the level you open is loaded — the whole tree is never expanded at once

Board View

Each folder under the current tab takes a column, headed by its name and the number of bookmarks it holds
Loose bookmarks that sit in no folder are gathered into the last column
Subfolders inside a column appear as collapsible blocks; click a block's title to expand or collapse it. Deeper levels show their name only and are left to the tree view
Board layout can be List or Compact: Compact sizes items to their content so more fit on one screen

Drag to Organize

Press and drag any bookmark or folder to move it. 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, so you can reach a position that is off screen
Across columns and folders — in board view, drag straight from one column to another

While you drag, a highlighted line or frame shows where the item will land. Release once it points where you want.

Creating, Editing and Deleting

Create — right-click a folder or an empty spot in the view and choose New bookmark or New folder. The dialog shows exactly where it will go, and the new item is added at the end
Rename — hover over an item and click the rename button at the end of the row to rename in place. Enter saves, Esc cancels
Edit — right-click an item and choose Edit to change a bookmark's name and address, or a folder's name
Delete — deleting a single bookmark happens right away; deleting a folder first tells you how many bookmarks are inside, and only proceeds once you confirm

Open All and Sort

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

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 where they sit:

Dup — another bookmark points to the same address
Empty — a folder with nothing in it
New — a bookmark added in the last 7 days

Click a Dup or Empty badge to go straight to the matching cleanup page. Each badge can be turned on or off separately in Features settings.

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

Folders with nothing in them are listed, all selected by default. Delete the ones you have checked, 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. Settings offers a Site icons switch; turning it on asks for your consent first, after which icons are supplied by a third-party icon service

Settings

General

Language — Follow System / English / 简体中文 / 日本語
Theme — Follow system / Light / Dark

Features

Default view — Tree or Board
Board layout — List or Compact, board view only
Click behavior — open in a new tab or in the current tab
Badges — Dup, Empty and New, each on or off
Show address when unnamed — a bookmark without a name shows its address instead
Site icons (Firefox only) — whether to fetch bookmark icons from a third-party icon service
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 changes to your browser bookmarks automatically, usually within an instant
While you are dragging or renaming, refreshes are held back 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
Check that the highlight was still showing when you released

Can I get deleted bookmarks back?

With the Trash on, anything you delete can be restored from the Trash on the Features page
With the Trash off, deletions cannot be undone, and cleaning up duplicates warns you about this first

No site icons on Firefox

Letter tiles are the default there; turn on Site icons in Settings and grant the permission
Some sites have no icon available, and those bookmarks keep their letter tile