
Ask HN: How do you manage your bookmarks? - kayf
Every time I saw something cool on the internet, I add it to my bookmarks.
Result: I have more than 5000 bookmarks on firefox.
I tried to add keywords and descriptions, but it takes me too much time to do that every time.<p>I also tried to use notion.so (an amazing tool !) to manage my bookmarks, but the plugin &quot;Notion Web Clipper&quot; does not allow to add tags when you save a link.<p>And you, how do you deal with your bookmarks?
Any good tips to keep interesting resources close to you?
======
monkeynotes
At what point do bookmarks essentially become an internet of your own making?
I guess you need to create a search engine so you can search your bookmark
collection, or maybe a Yahoo style directory to browse them.

Or...

Stop collecting the internet and give your brain a break from data overload.
There is a certain flavour of FOMO that keeps tabs open forever and bookmark
lists getting huge. Let go of it all. There will always be more data to
consume every day, you'll never have time for that AND 5k of bookmarks. Use
Google when you want to go back to something. I bet if you deleted 90% of
those bookmarks you would not really miss them after a month.

~~~
munmaek
Except with google it’s becoming impossible to find links from several years
ago. Unless I remember exactly the right keywords and maybe the website
name...

How is this FOMO? The entire point of bookmarks is “maybe I’ll come back later
to this”. Bookmarks let you save content that you come across that may not be
relevant at this time, but could be useful later. There is no penalty for
saving pages because space is virtually unlimited, and we can only collect so
many bookmarks anyway. Searching through bookmarks isn’t a difficult task, and
it’s way better than relying on google.

~~~
nounaut
Google (and related services, such as youtube) allows you to use before:YYYY-
MM-DD and after:YYYY-MM-DD to only show results that were created before or
after a certain date.

~~~
monadgonad
I think you're missing the wood for the trees a bit there. The point is that
there's so much on Google now - and a lot of it is effectively just crap data
like pinterest posts - that it becomes increasingly impossible to find
specific needles in that haystack. If I know at some point in the last 10
years I've read an article online that could have been written any point in
the last 30 years, before and after dates don't really help.

~~~
beenBoutIT
Pintrest seems to inappropriately float to the top of way to many searches.

------
flybayer
There are 3 types of bookmarks:

1) Read-later

Something interesting you want to read. Items in this category should be
automatically removed after a certain period of time, so it doesn't get out of
hand. New RSS feed items would also fit into this category.

2) Save-for-later

Something you're sure will be useful down the road. This should be retrieved
first and foremost using a powerful full-text search engine. Minimal tagging
can also be very helpful. Lastly, it's critical these items are archived by
the bookmark manager so you always have the content even if the website shuts
down.

3) Todo

Something you need to take action on. For example, buy this product, try this
new open-source library, install an app, etc. These should have optional
reminders to alert you at a certain day or time.

Currently my system is a terrible mess: I email myself for read-later and todo
but put save-for-later in Pocket. This is very frustrating because there's
tons of bookmark manager options but none support all 3 types, most have
terrible search, are slow, and don't have full-text search or archival.

So last year I started building what's going to be the Superhuman of Bookmark
Managers:

[https://AcornBookmarks.com](https://AcornBookmarks.com)

It will be 100% open-source and available as a hosted service.

I'm focusing on the fundamentals: speed, performance, robustness. I'm using
PouchDB, so all your data is 100% offline which makes it very, very fast. Of
course, it'll support all 3 bookmark types, have full-text search and
archival. It'll run on all browsers and platforms, including mobile apps built
in react-native. It's UI is going to be fun, geeky, and beautiful sci-fi with
multiple light/dark color themes.

If this sounds interesting, sign-up on the site — I'd love to chat with you
about this.

~~~
kapnobatairza
I feel like you understand my digital hoarding better than most. Would love to
contribute in any way I can to this project (financial or my own sweat). Let
me know if you are looking for help.

~~~
flybayer
Yes, let’s talk! Assuming you dropped your email on my website, just reply to
the automated signup email and we can take it from there.

------
AndrewDucker
If you're willing to tag things so you can find them later, then
[https://pinboard.in](https://pinboard.in)

If you're not then don't store them, just google them when you need them. That
will either help you find the link you wanted, or it will find you something
better, because the world has moved on since then.

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
Wholeheartedly agree with this. I've been very happy with pinboard, the one
area that could use improvement is on the mobile side: it's a bit annoying to
set a new bookmark in a mobile browser.

~~~
chadk
Pinner works fine on iOS.

------
hooande
My problem with bookmarks isn't managing them, but remembering that they
exist. It always seems faster to type words into google than to try to
remember whatever taxonomy or tagging scheme. And I never go back to check for
"something cool on the internet" at all.

I made an app that shows me N of my previous bookmarks per day at random,
loosely following spaced repetition. Seeing the same
articles/conversations/tutorials multiple times helps me to recall them when
needed, and I sometimes have serendipitous ideas.

I've been doing this for years and it's amazing how much of the internet is
broken. Maybe 20% of my bookmarks don't load and require the wayback machine.
hacker news comment pages always work though :)

~~~
icedchai
Same here. Bookmarks basically became obsolete once search got good enough.

~~~
thfuran
But after search got good, it got bad. Or at least increasingly strained by
the sheer magnitude of shit now online.

~~~
icedchai
It's still better than the early 2000's, which is the last time I really
needed "bookmarks."

~~~
JohnFen
My experience with this is very, very different. I think Google search has
generally become much worse than then, although other search engines seem to
be at about early 2000's quality level.

------
calpaterson
Well...I'm working on my own thing (FOSS)

[https://github.com/calpaterson/quarchive](https://github.com/calpaterson/quarchive)

It's quite early but I'm able to use it as a near replacement for pinboard
(including search but not including tags). I have circa 6k bookmarks so I feel
your pain.

It's based on sync of your browser bookmarks via an extension. This works well
because it allows you to bookmark on your phone.

Here are some features I have planned:

1\. Show what pages link to a bookmark

2\. Show discussions (HN/Reddit/Lobsters) about a bookmark

3\. Full text search (including of PDFs), perhaps including the above
discussions

4\. The ability to additionally just record everything you browse (including
full text)

Right now it works for me but looks a bit basic - I plan to soup up the
graphic design once I have the MVP working:

[https://i.imgur.com/5VdgGU7.png](https://i.imgur.com/5VdgGU7.png)

I'm hoping to make it available as a hosted service at some point

If you're interested in this topic, have feature ideas or are even interested
in working on it with me either comment here or please send me email -
cal@calpaterson.com . I know social bookmarking is not trendy any more but I
still use it a lot and pinboard is a bit limited.

~~~
masukomi
why "not including tags"

i derive _so_ much value from having well tagged items in Pinboard.

~~~
calpaterson
Tags are planned - they just aren't something I personally use much (I prefer
searching) so when trying to stand up a version for my personal use I skipped
tags. :)

------
bloopernova
In Firefox, I do these things:

1: When I bookmark something, I make sure I add 3+ short tags. "emacs"
"orgmode" "LaTeX". Or "devops" "helm" "plugin".

2: I use a Firefox extension to set a default folder for new bookmarks. It's
called "Default Bookmark Folder"

3: I use the SingleFile Firefox extension set to save a copy of every page I
bookmark to my Google Drive. This enables me to keep a snapshot of the page so
I can refer back to it whenever I want. I use this as the directory structure:
"Saved\Web\$YEAR\$MONTH\$ISODATE\$PAGETITLE.html" \- example
"Saved\Web\2020\01\2020-01-21\Ask HN: How do you manage your bookmarks.html"

Firefox's history and bookmark search are great. Its "library" window is very
useful (ctrl-j or command-j)

EDIT:

I organize my firefox bookmarks toolbar on the same "bar" as the urlbar. So it
goes something like this: bookmarks(gmail, music, work folder, personal
folder). Back/Forward/Reload/Home. Urlbar. Extensions Icons.

EDIT2: Big shoutout to the SingleFile Firefox extension. The author,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=gildas](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=gildas)
is a really great person who implemented my suggestion to add the feature to
SingleFile to save pages when bookmarked. They deserve all the praise and more
people should use this excellent extension (which is available for Chrome,
too)

------
kirubakaran
Check out my [https://histre.com/](https://histre.com/)

The main reason behind my building Histre is the idea that we throw away a lot
of the signal we generate while doing things online and this can be put to
good use for ourselves.

Bookmark management is just a special case of knowledge management. What you
really need is a knowledge management tool that is easy to use. You'll get a
ton of other benefits too.

As it is right now, Histre aids the casual online research we all do (ie the
explore -> filter -> decide loop). For example, it removes friction in taking
notes on links you're looking at, with free-form tags that you don't have to
create first and other such niceties that add up. And it easy to group notes
into notebooks and share. In short, when you have to look at a bunch of links
for something (decide on AirBnB, people to hire, material for your next blog
post, etc) Histre makes your life easier. But this is just the starting point
for what Histre intends to do.

IMHO the biggest problem with apps like Evernote, Notion etc is that it
becomes digital hoarding, and not a knowledge base. And the knowledge base
focused apps out there involve a lot of manual upkeep, which almost never
happens, especially at work. Things start out okay and quickly fall into
disrepair. I'm differentiating from the other note taking apps by
automatically putting together a knowledge base (grouped by topic etc).

One idea I'm excited about and I'm working on right now is: Histre
automatically fetches updates from the websites you visit, ranks the websites
with things like lack of ads / referral links and ranks the new posts with
your 'revealed preferences' of what you tend to actually read from the list of
updates previously shown etc. Personally I'm hoping for this to be a
replacement for social news sites, which are too sensitive to people who
bother to go upvote on /new.

Automatic Upkeep: Histre detects links/notes related to your existing
notebooks and offers to update those notebooks with the new links and notes.
This is similar to how Google Photos suggests new photos for your existing
albums. This solves the upkeep problem. Currently people create knowledge
bases with good intentions and it becomes stale and useless quite fast. This
is a work in progress.

If there is anything else you want Histre to do, I'd love to hear it:
hn@histre.com

~~~
MiracleUser
Can content from Histre be exported and easily digestible into a home brew
solution or is the user dependent on maintaining* an account with Histre in
order to not lose what they've put into it?

~~~
masukomi
Yeah, that's a big deal for me too. I want more info on what "Your Data is
Your Data" really means. If I can't walk away with it, it's not really mine.

~~~
kirubakaran
I agree. You'll be able to export everything. org-mode first (as I'm an emacs
user myself). csv next.

------
aasasd
> _but it takes me too much time to do that every time_

Good. It means you will stop hoarding bookmarks that you don't need.

An inherent problem with digital content is that it's pretty easy and cheap to
produce (with corresponding quality), and almost free to copy―but still
expensive in effort to consume and take meaningful action. You need to move
the balance if you want to avoid piling up digital garbage that you won't ever
conscientiously touch.

If you don't have time now to not even read the articles, but to just _add
tags_ , you won't have it later either unless you take a sabbatical or
retirement to go through that mess. Filing the pages in an organized system
needs a quite good amount of work in exchange for a chance that you at least
can find them in the future if the need arises. As a minimum, it requires that
you have _some_ understanding of what the page is about.

~~~
freehunter
Digital content being so easy to produce and often of such poor quality is the
best reason to use bookmarks. Trying to get back to the same tutorial I liked
is impossible when searching “react firebase authentication” shows a hundred
new poor quality articles being written every day. If I see a couple that
might be promising I’ll throw them into my bookmarks to go through later.
Because most of them might be trash but who knows if I’ll ever be able to find
them again to verify.

~~~
heisenbit
Yes, in the past the web was able to self curate. People were creating links
to stuff they found valuable. Google amplified these signals. These days it is
too easy to copy-paste stuff and creating meaningless content is valued over
referencing reference material. Google search quality went down.

What we need is a way to get Google and other search engines to index our
bookmarks to figure out what people value.

~~~
freehunter
Ugh, the worst is when I click a StackOverflow result that doesn't solve my
problem so I go further down the list and all the rest of the results are
sites that just index and mirror SO content.

------
psv1
> I have more than 5000 bookmarks on firefox

With the risk of sounding like someone on StackOverflow, do you even need to
do this?

I have <100 bookmarks at any time and regular bookmark directories with
browser sync work great. I don't have a good solution for efficiently managing
thousands. But I also can't imagine that you'll ever actually read all of
them, or need to re-read most of them. It's okay to see something on the
internet and not save it.

~~~
silon42
I have many bookmarks too (10k+ -- firefox is not very fast handling them).
Most of them not needed of course, but there have been several instances I
tried to open something in my bookmarks and the site no longer existed... so
obviously bookmarks also need to store the last viewed site content)

~~~
psv1
> so obviously bookmarks also need to store the last viewed site content

Yeah, just save every page you ever open to disk. Just in case. Right? Also
sync all of that data on multiple machines. But what if the syncing service
disappears some day? Better ask for a self-hosted solution. But a free one.
Which saves everything. Just in case anything ever gets lost. How much better
life would be then.

~~~
dredmorbius
Saving _much_ content to disk makes some degree of sense, and there are tools
that already do this, though not at the user level (and increasingly
incompletely as SSL/TLS transport becomes near universal): caching proxies.

Your browser also caches aggressively.

If targeted to specific high-value sites, or setting retention based on site /
content value (some automatic, some less so, some short-lived, some logner),
you'll end up with a useful and usable local archive with what is today _very
small_ amounts of storage -- even a few GB of text out of a TB or more, isn't
much, and that would be a pretty extensive collection.

If the content can be reduced such that it's _just_ necessary text (excluding
web crud and more), the end result is likely much smaller still. I've
experimented with reducing Washington Post articles and homepage to a
simplified view, by selecting specific HTML elements, and the result weighs in
at about 3-10% of the source page.

A typical online article likely runs about 800 words. If you read (or save) 20
articles a day for a year, thats about 300 MB.

You would eventually fill a 1 TB hard drive with text at that point. In about
3,400 years.

------
dgellow
I don't. I arrived to the conclusion that just collecting everything I find
interesting doesn't make sense if I never consume the resulting collection.

When I see something that could be related to a project I have, and I know
that I will check it in the near future, I save a copy of the web content to
OneNote. But mostly I stopped caring about bookmarking/saving everything that
I find interesting.

~~~
ShakataGaNai
100%. I used to have massive bookmark collections all extremely well
organized. But at some point in time I realized it was a huge amount of effort
and rarely go back and use them.

For links I want to keep, for say education, related to a project I'm working
on, or similar - I simply write them down in Inkdrop (notepad system of
choice) under the relevant note/header. Honestly I don't often go back to
those anyways, but they are there if I need them.

For other stuff that I want to keep around for longer, maybe "This will be
interesting to read, I just don't have time now" \- I send them to myself on
Telegram (messenger of choice). It's search works and it's a great timeline.
If I don't think about that article/topic again, or don't have free time to go
back... then it gets buried and I probably will never see it again. But the
link always exists and is searchable... so I don't feel like I've "lost"
things completely.

~~~
dgellow
Self-texting you on Telegram is a great idea. That way you don't feel the
pressure to keep it organized, you have a way to find it if you need it in the
next few days, and you have some sort of historical records. That's neat.

------
dewey
I used to collect a lot of bookmarks too, I sorted them in folders in the
Firefox bookmark bar and thought it's important to keep track of them.

After switching to a different browser for a while I just didn't port them
over and realized I actually don't need any of them (Except maybe 1-5
shortcuts for sites I open often, usually they are just pinned tabs now).

I'd suggest to give it a try. I don't think I ever had the problem that I
couldn't find something again and if it's important enough there will be a way
to find it again.

------
tptacek
Pinboard. With Archive mode, Pinboard's full-text search spans the contents of
PDFs, which is a godsend feature that saves me an hour or two a week (I
bookmark a lot of research). I probably use Pinboard search more than
Spotlight on my laptop.

------
inapis
I am building my own. I used to use Chrome bookmarks, but then started pushing
everything to Pocket. Unfortunately Pocket's design doesn't handle a lot of
things (like documents/videos etc) nor does it encourage reading much (it's
easier to save than actually read).

So I am now building Liste[1] thinking of it as a more power-user focused
tool.

Aim is to make Liste a powerful read/watch/listen-it-later + a personal
knowledge base tool. In the long run I aim to replace goodreads/imdb et al
with only source of truth in my life - all stored in Liste.

Beta launch is targeted in Q1 2020. Probably by mid-feb.

[1] [https://getliste.com](https://getliste.com)

~~~
C14L
Same here. From Chrome bookmarks to Firefox bookmarks to Pocket and now
building my own.

------
zorbash
I use [https://tefter.io](https://tefter.io) (Disclaimer I'm a founder)

Usually my workflows are:

1\. Use the chrome extension to add something

2\. Sometimes I add tags or add it to a list

3\. If it's related to work I'll add it to my work organisation

For links I come across on Slack, I use the Slack app
([https://slack.com/apps/AFBC4A147-tefter](https://slack.com/apps/AFBC4A147-tefter))
to quickly bookmark any links included in a message somebody posted.

When it comes to bookmarking, plenty of options out there. For me effective
collaboration was the feature missing from most of them and that's why we're
building Tefter.

~~~
mateioprea
any plans for a mac app?

~~~
zorbash
There's an electron-based desktop app.

[https://github.com/tefter/desktop](https://github.com/tefter/desktop)

------
lifeisstillgood
A while back someone on here posted a reply to a similar question for me - and
it was one of those 'road to Damascus' moments for me.

The poster pointed out that we should not have to bookmark - that why do our
own browsers not simply record every site we visits (and even cache the text
for alter searching).

Its technically trivial. But we all have this blind spot - that it is
_perfectly reasonable_ for massive corporations to collect where we visit, but
no-one, even in free browsers, thinks to record it for our own use later on.

I wish I could show you the link. But i cannot search my history and i did not
bookmark it. :-(

~~~
JohnFen
> we all have this blind spot - that it is perfectly reasonable for massive
> corporations to collect where we visit

I don't think this is reasonable at all.

------
btrettel
I used to bookmark pages frequently. I think at one point a few years ago I
had more than 15,000 bookmarks in Firefox possibly dating back to 2001 or so
(when I used IE!). (Edit: According to a file I have, I had 12,072 bookmarks
on Aug. 1, 2015. As I recall this wasn't my peak.)

In practice, I found that by the time I would return to them (often years
later), I frequently lost the context and the page went offline. So now I will
typically instead paste the URL into an organized series of text file notes on
various subjects, sometimes including a short summary of what interested me, a
quote, or both. Even if I don't add a short note, I find that the
categorization is more specific in the text file than the bookmarks, which
helps contextualize the webpage. I'll also often either save the page to my
hard drive or save it in Zotero, choosing the latter if I think I might cite
it in a paper in the future.

I haven't stopped using bookmarks, but the bookmarks I have now are more
ephemeral. I still sometimes fall into my old habits and use some bookmark
folders for non-ephemeral things, but I've been getting better about this over
the years. If it's in my bookmarks, it's probably not as important as what's
in my text files.

A few years back, I did make a concerted effort to transfer as many of my
bookmarks to text files as possible as well. I probably deleted over half of
them in this process.

According to grep, I have approximately 43,957 URLs saved in my text files...

~~~
Psyladine
>So now I will typically instead paste the URL into an organized series of
text file notes on various subjects, sometimes including a short summary of
what interested me, a quote, or both.

This has been my way of doing it for some years. Usually end up writing a
blog-ish sort of shorthand in sublime text with some thoughts and perspective
to prime my later self on what I was thinking and why it caught my attention.
Usually leave a few hanging questions for followup as well.

------
fragosti
I don't use bookmarks anymore and just use the Pocket chrome extension.

[https://app.getpocket.com/](https://app.getpocket.com/)

------
Juliate
Same issue as you. So I don't care anymore.

I have 10/15 bookmarks in the top toolbar that are releant to my work. All the
rest goes into limbo, and I don't even bookmark much anymore.

When needed, I write notes (wiki, or paper) with links contextualized by
topic/need.

The problem with bookmarks is those 3 together (that are required for
bookmarks to be of any usefulness - to me anyway):

1) it's easy to create one, there should be more friction;

2) it's hard to have a long-term storage/indexing system (Delicious &
equivalents were a good direction);

3) it requires a custom setup for bookmark search to be integrated.

Also, in the mid-term, most URLs are broken.

A paper notebook, on the other hand:

1) requires a conscious effort to note something done (and to have around
also);

2) is relatively a secure & long term storage; it's discoverable;

3) the effort marks a memory inprint that helps indexing in long term memory,
just for the "I remember I noted that down somewhere when I was in...".

My offline bookmarks/notes/snippets/activities feel way more productive and
fulfilling than the computer-based ones in the long-term.

------
mvip
I've been using Buku
([https://github.com/jarun/Buku](https://github.com/jarun/Buku)) for some time
and I really like it. Allows for tagging, and even visualization. I normally
use the web interface, but there are browser extensions and CLI available too.

------
codingdave
I keep it quite simple - I have a handful of folders related to my projects
and hobbies. I add related links there, and sort through them, deleting
bookmarks when no longer needed, probably once a month or so. For anything
outside those topics, I add it to the main bookmarks bar in the browser, and
catch up on those things on weekends, deleting them when read.

Of course, it sounds like we have different filters. You said you add a
bookmark when you "saw something cool". I only add bookmarks that I believe
will have a positive impact on the things I do in my life. There is new cool
stuff online every day... I personally let most of it go by, because there
will be something else tomorrow.

------
frindo
Hey I built [https://www.linkdrop.co/](https://www.linkdrop.co/) about 6
months ago to solve _exactly_ that problem.

Linkdrop doesn't have any unread article lists. When you "save" an article, it
queues it up to send it to you in an email the next day.

Since I've been using it I find that my _actual_ bookmarks are things I want
to save instead of just random articles. Makes things a lot cleaner :)

It's got a good number of users atm and things are running smoothly, it's also
free. If you do use it, feel free to send me any feedback you have. I've been
trying to find more time to hack on it and would love some more direction.

------
karlicoss
I had same issues as you (browsers even didn't have bookmark tags back then)!
I used Pinboard for few years, until I adopted org-mode and Pinboard started
feeling very clumsy and slow.

The benefit of org-mode (or any plaintext bookmarking) is that it makes it
instantly searchable in my emacs. I accept that I probably will never have
time to properly read through everything I clipped. But it works as a personal
search engine: when I search for some topic/tool/etc., I run into some related
stuff that I already clipped. It has higher information quality than googling
it because my past self already found it interesting and curated these pieces
of information. I describe my setup for searching in emacs here: [0].

Another benefit of org-mode is that I can add tags, notes and basically treat
bookmarks as any other piece of knowledge I keep in my org-mode files.

Basically, I only use browser bookmarks for services (i.e. social
networks/dashboards/etc) now. If it's some sort of knowledge or anything
interesting, it gets clipped into org-mode.

For clipping pages into org-mode I tried using org-protocol [1] for
bookmarking straight into org-mode; it was unreliable for me, so I wrote my
own extension [2]

And finally, I'm working on a browser extension [3], that would unify
'bookmarks' and browsing history from anywhere, whether they are youtube
lists/github stars/twitter likes/IM messages or even plaintext files on your
filesystem

[0] [https://beepb00p.xyz/pkm-
search.html#personal_information](https://beepb00p.xyz/pkm-
search.html#personal_information)

[1] [https://github.com/sprig/org-capture-
extension](https://github.com/sprig/org-capture-extension)

[2] [https://beepb00p.xyz/grasp.html](https://beepb00p.xyz/grasp.html)

[3]
[https://github.com/karlicoss/promnesia#demo](https://github.com/karlicoss/promnesia#demo)

------
humbfool2
I use Notion too. I have added Notion Webclipper extension to all my browsers
on, to save link I have created lists based on category i.e study, tech, life,
etc. While bookmarking I just add the link to the respective category. On
Phone, Notion has this feature to share a link to the app to save the
bookmark. Before this, I used Chrome Bookmark manager. A pocket is a good tool
too but I am fed up with having an individual app for every use
case(bookmarking, todo, calendar). Notion is one good service with all the
features that I need as a student, but their Andriod UI suck. You can hit them
up on twitter and request the feature to add tags.

------
cprayingmantis
I use Pocket but I've never once went back to look at a bookmark. It's mostly
about just removing my FOMO if I close that one tab with that "really cool"
article. Which that helps me keep everything a little more tidy.

------
jmstfv
I used to hoard lots of bookmarks to never look at them again.

It was a markdown file full of links, organized by a category, sometimes
accompanied by a short comment. A never-ending backlog of articles, papers,
videos, past live streams, blogs, and Hacker News threads that I will
presumably come back one day.

I no longer save bookmarks and I no longer get a pressing urge to clear my
backlog.

Recently, I have published a single HTML page on my personal website
(ironically, called bookmarks.html) with a half-dozen of links that I found
_particularly remarkable_. But the purpose here is to _share good stuff_ with
folks rather than _look at it later when I have more time_.

------
ajnin
I actually made a small webapp to deal with my bookmarks. It's unfinished so
it's more a dump than anything at the moment. I can categorize bookmarks using
a directory structure as well as tags, to deal with search more easily.

This was also a way for me to learn about browser plugins, to integrate a
bookmark button in the browser's toolbar.

I intend to make it a public service at some point. For anyone interested :
[https://bmlite.net](https://bmlite.net) (most minimalst MVP ever :)) (I have
ipv6 issues at the moment, sorry about connection issues)

~~~
masukomi
Is this open source?

------
JohnFen
I run a bookmark manager on my home web server (accessible from the internet).
I prefer that over managing bookmarks using browser facilities, because I can
use bookmarks from any browser and any machine, anywhere. I also don't have to
worry about losing bookmarks if I change browsers, replace the OS, etc.

I'm also a bit allergic to using some external service to do this -- that
seems like a pointless loss of control to me.

(I use Online Bookmarks [http://www.frech.ch/online-
bookmarks/](http://www.frech.ch/online-bookmarks/) for this)

------
majewsky
Probably not what you're asking for, but I've recently started archiving
interesting articles in a Git repository, especially those that I fear I would
not be able to find again via search engine.

I store articles as Markdown (there are online converters that take a URL and
extract the Markdown, e.g.
[http://fuckyeahmarkdown.com](http://fuckyeahmarkdown.com)) with some manual
cleanup. It's a bit expensive, which means that I only do it for stuff that I
really really want to keep. I have about two dozen things in that folder by
now.

------
srvaroa
I send links to getpocket.com from $device. I like to save the best ones, so I
made a dumb tool to download them as rendered text files (glorified w3m -dump)
which I organize in 3 folders that my tool syncs back upstream to GetPocket:
favourites (which I keep locally and backed up), archived (local copy is
deleted, but link kept in GetPocket), and deleted (sync deletes from local and
GetPocket). The tool is
[http://github.com/srvaroa/repocket](http://github.com/srvaroa/repocket)

------
MarcellusDrum
I'm not much of a bookmarks guy, but I used to have the same problem 4 years
ago when I used Facebook. I would find an interesting video or article, save
it (very similar to bookmarking it but within Facebook), and then forget about
it. Facebook even reminds you every couple of weeks that you have 10 saved
articles that you haven't read.

And then it happened again with Reddit. Same thing: I save an interesting
comment or post, and then never see it again. I sometimes go back to get a
specific comment, but it takes forever to find it. So my solution was to make
it some type of game. I find time every month to just attack those saved posts
and comments, and check them out 1 by 1. Some of them are either videos that I
couldn't watch at the time, or articles I thought I should read later. I
watched the videos, read the articles, and then unsaved the posts. If their is
a post I think there is a big chance I'll go back to again, I'll keep it
saved.

After took me a couple of sessions to go through all my backlog, but after
every session, I learn so much, probably laugh a lot as well, and my bookmarks
are kept to an absolute minimum.

So yeah, no extension will help you, I'm sure more than half of your bookmarks
are a one time read, many are also not interesting to you anymore, and those
you really want to keep are less than a hundred.

------
otterpro
I use vim and plain text files to keep track of interesting bookmarks in
markdown format and also write a summary or important points. That way, if I
need to search for something, all I need is a grep (or ripgrep). If the page
is worth saving for future, I use Evernote's web clipper to save it so I can
re-read or review it in the future. (I'm on Evernote free plan as I rarely go
over the limit)

I used to be a heavy Delicious user before it went away.

~~~
sp332
Did you know that Delicious was bought by Pinboard? Maceij put it in permanent
read-only mode and fixed the export feature to make sure people didn't lose
their data.
[https://blog.pinboard.in/2017/06/pinboard_acquires_delicious...](https://blog.pinboard.in/2017/06/pinboard_acquires_delicious/)

------
towb
I keep the tab open until I read it... or just as likely, until I close it x
months later. At least I won't have 5 year old bookmarks that I never looked
at.

~~~
ChrisSD
This way leads to madness. I have nearly 3000 tabs open. I'm trying to sort
through them but it's a lot.

~~~
rwnspace
There's a Firefox extension named OneTab, it aggregates all your open tabs
into a single page, closing every tab except the OneTab. I have mine pinned.
That, or Ctrl+Shift+D in Firefox to bookmark all tabs. I tend to have 10+ tabs
open myself but the thought of that many tabs gives me the heebie-jeebies.

~~~
ChrisSD
Wow, thanks! OneTab has changed my life and also saved me about 1gb of memory.

------
ledbulb
Short: Firefox with sync enabled for desktop and iOS browsing. I also save
exported .html/.json backups to Google Drive. I use Instapaper for saving news
articles.

Long: After many years of many systems, I now use FF bookmarks on desktop as
my base for managing and organizing. A few months ago I pared down my
collection significantly but still have a few thousand links. I only sync
across FF using the built-in sync. Used Xmarks previously for Chrome/FF/Safari
but that got too complicated and broke once they shut the service down. If I
need to sync elsewhere I can just export from FF.

I utilize the built-in "Bookmarks Toolbar" folder for work/frequently accessed
pages. I have a "To Sort" subfolder in there for bookmarks that I still need
to categorize. I make folders for things that I'm researching or articles I
want to read on desktop.

In the main "Bookmarks Menu" I have about 25 folders for different subject
areas like Business/Employment/Money, Design, Development, Travel, etc. I have
one folder where I keep track of accounts I have logins to. I have a "Buy"
folder with a few different subfolders of brands or stores that I like.

Finally, there's a "Mobile Bookmarks" folder that contains bookmarks saved on
FF iOS. This makes it easy to save things quickly on iOS and organize later on
desktop. If you use Safari on iOS you can easily bookmark in FF by clicking
the share button, selecting FF iOS (must be installed) and choosing "Bookmark
This Page". You don't even have to exit Safari :)

In general I bookmark because I like curating all these unique areas of my
internet life. I like having a list of personally vetted links that I can go
back to when I need them, after my brain has moved on and my browser history
has been cleared.

------
mvp
I use Google Keep for saving anything I find interesting online. There's a
chrome extension that you can use to do it from the browser. It allows you to
write some text around the link/text you are saving. I write enough text so
that I am able to find it by searching. I also give one standard label to
these notes so these are not mixed up with other Keep notes for tasks, book
notes etc.

------
tkainrad
I have a multi-layer approach that I recently documented in detail [1].

To summarize: 1\. Chrome Bookmarks 2\. Workona 3\. Notion 4\. Native Bookmark
Sources (e.g. HN, Stack Overflow, Twitter)

The large bookmark library you are talking about lives in layer 3, Notion. I
too have issues with its Web Clipper. However, I came to realize that it is a
very good habit anyway to manually curate recently added bookmarks. I do it
about twice a month and usually, I can throw out a good portion of the new
additions because they do not seem quite as relevant on second look. The big
advantage of having your bookmarks library in Notion is that you can relate to
other databases in Notion, e.g. projects, blog posts, ideas.

Another important lesson: Be careful not to do too much bookmarking. A large
library can feel overwhelming and most things can be easily found again with a
simple google search.

[1] [https://tkainrad.dev/posts/managing-my-personal-knowledge-
ba...](https://tkainrad.dev/posts/managing-my-personal-knowledge-
base/#bookmarking)

------
shane156
I have the same problem and have started using
[https://raindrop.io](https://raindrop.io)

Hope it serves you well

~~~
deepakjois
I tried Raindrop.io and was impressed enough to get an annual subscription to
it.

My main use case was to have a single place for all my bookmarks across
Android, iOS, OS X and Linux, and across Firefox and Chrome.

Among all the solutions I evaluated, Raindrop.io had the best UX at the time.

------
dredmorbius
Bookmarks themselves (save a few references), and many archival systems,
aren't particularly useful, mostly because they impose far too much overhead
into either _classifying_ or _using_ the resulting archive.

Manually tagging everything ... is tedious.

The inability to search _content_ of bookmarks, or even, often to find the
original content online (praise His Noodliness for the Internet Archive's
Wayback Machine), is a major impediment.

Reading (and using) research tools which _do_ allow and facilitate use, not
merely archival, of references, is a complete game-changer, and makes clear
that much of the present organisational conceit of Web content is highly
flawed, with assumptions based on 20- 30-year-old system limitations, when
disk _was_ scarce, storage expensive, and local search difficult at best.

The focus of most vendors -- both proprietary _and_ nominally free software --
around user-surveillance, tracking, and cloud-based platforms facilitating
both, means that usable, user-controlled, local (or at least proximate)
solutions ... are poorly developed, supported, and advertised (irony noted).

There are some. I'm encouraged by the mentions of projects in this thread.
Pinboard, Pocket, Wallabag, and other options have some use.[1]

I still think the area's ripe for drastic improvement.

________________________________

Notes.

1\. I make heavy use of Pocket. I remain largely disappointed,[2] though
there's a recent Android client rewrite I'm meaning to try.

2\.
[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5x2sfx/pocket_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5x2sfx/pocket_it_gets_worse_the_more_you_use_it/)

------
petercooper
I created a basic Ruby script to bookmark, tag, and search from the command
line. I drag links in from the browser to the terminal to use it. It uses a
single flat text file in a Dropbox folder so it works across all of my
machines too. If you're a developer and you live at the terminal, I recommend
a similar approach as it's just so simple.

------
tunesmith
There's the lightweight approach of just deleting all your bookmarks and
trusting you will be able to answer any future question for yourself. This is
similar to choosing to live without a long-term todo list, trusting that
anything that needs attention will present itself to your attention.

The latter has never really worked for me, so the heavyweight approach is to
have a why-justified system. If you're going to save a bookmark, it had better
be referred to in some checklist or documentation attached to a long-term
project that you are actively working on, and that you've sufficiently
justified as being a necessary part of your long term goals or values. In
other words, any bookmark worth saving should be able to be attached to some
sort of actionable tactic.

And as part of that, all of these projects (and bookmarks) need to be actively
reviewed. If you aren't regularly reviewing them, then just delete them.

------
kenvin101
Hello, We think bookmark is not only a bookmark, but something we want to keep
it to get back later. It could be a link, a hight light text, a note, a todo
etc... , sometime a bookmark relates to a document (a file) or a people. At
the end of the day we have a lot of things to keep but easily to forget. That
the reason we think bookmark with #hashtag is the best way to mark some
important keyword we could get back later easily. Beyond a bookmark is could
be a thinking we want to keep, that 's why many people like to use private
facebook post as bookmark. We did try to build a simple MVP of this idea at
[https://www.kocpit.com](https://www.kocpit.com) \- bookmark management with
#hashtag , with full text search support. Bookmark an URL , a file, a content,
markdown, note etc by your way. Try it free.

------
_fat_santa
I created an app about a year ago called fav.sh. This isn't for your
"everyday" bookmarks but moreso for things that you happen to come across on
the internet and want to save. From there it backs up the bookmarks to Github
Gist or a local file on your computer.

Right now it works, albeit not perfectly and is available for Chrome only. I
recently open sourced the whole thing and plan to release a Firefox version as
well.

Check it out if you are interested:

Chrome: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fav-bookmark-
manag...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fav-bookmark-
manager/gammmbkeceiljlgijimbhhgkfmiejnkl)

Github:
[https://github.com/sgolovine/fav.sh](https://github.com/sgolovine/fav.sh)

------
mjankowski
My approach is to keep adding those to github wiki using a simple bookmarklet
which asks me for a link name and url

[https://github.com/maciejjankowski/2020/wiki/Jan](https://github.com/maciejjankowski/2020/wiki/Jan)

good things: it is stored as a markdown file for each month, it is a github
repository, so it can be edited either online or in text editor, it is quite
easy to search it using command line tools or 'find in folder' option from
text editor

missing features - tags, longer descriptions

bookmarklet code:
[https://gist.github.com/maciejjankowski/312800dd22fbd8cd8f07...](https://gist.github.com/maciejjankowski/312800dd22fbd8cd8f071e275c5ec98e)

------
undebuggable
A lightweight online utility to host them as JSON so I can edit them from
anywhere and then export to Netscape Bookmark format. The specification of the
format is probably the silliest one on the entire web [1]. Then importing
manually the HTML to all browsers on all machines, sigh. Looking around for
some self-hosted solution or established but necessarily lightweight online
solution.

[1] [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-
versions/windows/i...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-
versions/windows/internet-explorer/ie-developer/platform-
apis/aa753582\(v=vs.85\))

------
mrisoli
I use Toby as a Chrome extension and new tab page:

[http://www.gettoby.com/](http://www.gettoby.com/)

I find it has some tiny glitches with drag and dropping to rearrange, but
otherwise it's free and works pretty well.

------
agotterer
In addition to my browsers (Vivaldi) built in bookmark tool which I use for
categorization, I’ve been using Google Custom Search to add bookmarks,
interesting information, and solutions to problems to a private index. I have
a browser shortcut setup to search my private index. When I feel like I’ve
seen something before or know generally what I’m looking for I’ll search that
index first before going to Google proper. The biggest downside is that adding
urls to the index is manual. I was going to create a bookmarklet or browser
extension but I haven’t been able to find a public API for adding urls to the
Google Custom Search index.

------
mcint
I save URLs of particular interest in my command-line notes tool, and save
urls visited with reckless abandon using OneTab, or now, by exporting URLs
with AppleScript or directly from Browser Session files.

I think of Gwern's [https://www.gwern.net/Archiving-
URLs](https://www.gwern.net/Archiving-URLs)

Which gets part of the way to having a full index, and gives you offline
searchability.

As noname120 mentioned, the "memex" extension indexes what you read, but I
found the slowdown from indexing work interfered with normal browsing too much
for me. Maybe batched, or manually triggered, indexing would work for me.

------
bhl
Most of my "bookmarks" are just HackerNews or Reddit posts that I've upvoted.
Outside of those two, it's too inconvenient to save webpages. Think about it:
with upvoting a post, you not only get one-click convenience but also
automatic context (comments, subreddits) that almost beats tagging. It'd be
nice if someone can generalize this; make any link or text on the web easily
save-able and comment-able. I've looked into web annotator extensions like
Liner or Hypothes.is but they don't provide I'd like. Why is the most common
way to share a snippet from an article to screenshot it?

------
jkingsbery
I have two processes, depending on the content:

1\. If I find something that looks interesting, but I don't know why or for
what, I bookmark it and put it in a bookmark folder "To Read" in order to read
later.

2\. For things where there is a specific need it addresses (e.g., is relevant
to a project I'm working on), I usually have one or more design docs going for
each project I work on, and the link gets dropped into the reference section
of the doc. That way, I can find it easily in the context of the thing I'm
trying to do, and when I share the doc with others, they also will know where
I'm coming from with my ideas.

------
kmstout
While reading the comments I thought, "Surely there's a way to auto-submit
bookmarks to the Wayback Machine, yes?" A moment of searching unearthed a
Firefox extension for doing that. The commit logs at the Github repo show
continual development since 2015.

Installer: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/archiveror/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/archiveror/)

Repo:
[https://github.com/rahiel/archiveror](https://github.com/rahiel/archiveror)

------
michaelanckaert
It looks like everyone is building their own thing... So am I:
[https://trackr.sh](https://trackr.sh)

I have a couple of thousand bookmarks, which as some might say is a ridiculous
amount. Except they aren't really bookmarks in the strict sense. For me they
are webpages that contain useful information. Some bookmarks don't get opened
for years but I know that if I ever need information on compiling SBCL I can
click the tags 'sbcl' and 'compilers'. Searching the internet for that exact
article probably wouldn't get me what I found 4 years ago.

------
evsasse
I use 3 levels of "importance" for them.

The actual browser bookmarks, with stuff that has proven itself useful and I
end up searching for it at least a handful of times a year.

Notion Web Clipper to dump everything else on a "need to organize" file on
Notion.

A couple times a month I go into the "need to organize" file, read anything
that was there as a "read later" and remove them, simply remove anything that
looking back doesnt seem like will be useful on the next year, and move
everything else and then categorize/add tags to a "useful links" file also on
Notion.

Before Notion I've used Pocket similarly.

------
mendeza
I use slack to manage bookmarks. I was using Toby Chrome plugin, but after
1000 bookmarks, its search is really slow. Slack is awesome for personal use
because you can easily search for links you written, and organize with new
channels. Discord may be a better alternative, because there is no limit to
how many messages you have.

I agree with monkeynotes that you have to be mindful on how much time you
spend collecting bookmarks, I felt consumed at one point and unproductive
because you skim, you save, and you find other links to the original link you
are saving. Probably set a time limit to how long you spend.

~~~
marcinem
Im using Mailist App to collect bookmarks which are then composed in a weekly,
personal newsletter. That makes me actually read then and not only store and
forget :)

------
gramakri
I use Wallabag - [https://wallabag.org/en](https://wallabag.org/en) . It's a
read-it later style bookmark app. It's opensource, so you can self-host it.

------
fanf2
I have been accumulating links at [https://dotat.at/](https://dotat.at/):
since 2002. It is super low-effort: rather than tagging, I rely on keywords in
the title (which I try to adjust to be more searchable). I don’t try to read
all the stuff: the links are partly an aide memoire in case I want to go back
and dig deeper on a subject. Some of the links I refer to fairly often. (I
should probably move my old static bookmarks page to my link log since I use
my link log way more now so it is more convenient in practice.)

------
lynndotpy
I keep a few folders roughly organizing interesting links.

I heard an old trick to avoid overspending. Bookmark an item, and look back in
a week. If you still want it, buy it!

I don't have that overspending problem, but I find it applies well to
bookmarks. I clear it out once a week, it's a very fun chore. Looking back
with a fresh mind, many things are not interesting to me, and those things
that are, I can invest time in to look at.

Useful looking tools or programs, I usually file away permanently to another
bookmark, because I find myself looking back there many months later :)

------
simplecto
This is so interesting because this question comes up about two times per
year.

Please reach out to me (contact info in my profile) as I have a side project I
would like to resurrect that tackles these same issues.

------
gravitas
With the death of del.icio.us many moons ago, I imported to diigo.com and
still use it. Many of the things i bookmark are technical learning related so
tend to tag easily and self organize on those tags. I'm just using the free
tier, no need for all the fancy paid stuff they offer myself. Importantly, you
can export your data as a backup - no vendor lock in.

I use the basic .js bookmarklet in Firefox to add links quickly, no addons or
extensions required. Android app is OK but I uninstalled it after not using it
for a long time.

------
kayf
Many thanks for your feedbacks!

What stays in my mind :

1\. Try to not use bookmarks for long terms. Keep useful information in a
personal wiki, website, ... It's probably the best way to remember information
and to be able to refind them when needed.

2\. If you still need to use bookmarks, there are lots of custom tools. I
checked all of your submission and there is some very nice stuff. It all
depends on your use on how you use bookmarks :)

I like how Toby allows organizing bookmarks per session. I'm gonna give a try
to this tool, but with a limited number of bookmark.

------
anais9
I got addicted to del.icio.us in its heyday, so once it got acquired and
subsequently sunset I wrote [https://savecrate.com](https://savecrate.com) and
haven't looked back. The ability to save anything (public/private) without
having to weigh whether it's "important enough" and retrieve it quickly via
search/tags (eliminating the necessity of messy folder/hierarchical
structures) is indispensable to my workflow.

------
dave333
My home page is a hand crafted page of links to the sites I use the most. Each
row contains links on a particular type of site like social networks,
financial sites, news sites, hobby sites etc. I have a simple script that
makes it easy to add a new site, but I haven't added one for a couple of
years. Bookmarks are still just a big list in a menu - sites I don't want to
forget about, but not ones I visit often. So when I need to visit one,
searching the list isn't too onerous.

------
minikomi
Emacs, org-mode, tags, GitHub private repo & daily journaling

------
spacepinball
The best solution is to not make bookmarks.

Every bookmark you create is a time commitment at a later date. The more you
have, the less time you have available at any later point in time.

~~~
zojirushibottle
that's bad advice. bookmarking is very valuable in this day and age. websites
and blogs you swear you have seen before won't appear in search result!
searching is failing us but we can start to trust our bookmarks again.

------
aswerty
I built devmark.io a couple of years ago but it never took off - never went
beyond a Chrome extension. It is a bookmarking tool designed so it didn't feel
like you were collecting urls - you'd save them and rely on the search
function (which isn't that advanced unfortunately - postgres full text
search). I still use it myself but hosting costs about 300euro every year so
it's a questionable investment from my own point of view.

~~~
ShamelessC
That sounds high for a few text searches a day. Do you have a large number of
sites saved?

~~~
aswerty
No, just that. The joys of running on Heroku!

------
tiendq
I love Bookmark Manager extension (Chrome) but Google suddenly killed it :( so
now my only option is Chrome built-in bookmarks. Bookmark must be really quick
and easy using with a couple of clicks to add/access so all external website
options are not relevant to me. Pocket and Keep are the best alternatives with
their Chrome extensions but unfortunately I already use them for
reading/noting respectively.

------
henrik_w
I use Twitter. I tweet out links I like, and search in Twitter when I try to
find something I remember. The added bonus is that others can discover the
links too.

------
GavinAnderegg
I use Bear ([https://bear.app/](https://bear.app/)) for all my note taking,
and use that to organize any links that I might want to come back to later.
Its search is effective enough that I'm always able to find what I'm after.
Evernote or other apps would also probably work well for this, but I really
like Bear's design and ability to manually tag things while writing.

------
Tomte
pinboard.in

It's great (again).

I have around 3.5k bookmarks, sloppily tagged, and it's such a great resource
to have.

~~~
kasperset
I loved pinboard.in and had the subscription with archival support for more
than 5 years. However, the search "full-text" did not work all the time. I
used to get some server-side error. As a bookmark only tool, it still works
excellent almost all the time.

~~~
Tomte
During the time when Maciej was campaigning (he supported several US Senate
candidates), Pinboard was constantly broken. Archiving rarely worked.

Now that he's again paying attention to his service, I haven't had issues
again.

~~~
kasperset
That makes sense. I may try archival plan again and see if it works
consistently.

------
erikig
I've been using Google Chrome's bookmarks and I'm pretty happy with the cross
device capabilities.

I ended up creating folders to manage my workflow GTD-style. It turns out
everything in my life has a URL.

\- START (Workspace, Email, Calendar)

\- INBOX (Random things that come up)

\- TODO (Next Actions)

\- PROJECTS (Things that can't be done in one step. One subfolder for each)

\- OFTEN (Reference, Documentation, Utils etc)

\- LATER (Anything I want to read later, I empty this every couple of months.
This is just a procrastination busting hack)

------
nyxcharon
I use [https://ulluminate.com/](https://ulluminate.com/)

It lets me add links into different collections easily and I can even share
those collections with other people if I want. It's really nice to be able to
just share a collection of links when someone ask for something. Ex. I have a
nice collection of recipes that I can just share out when someone ask me for a
recipe for something.

------
m-p-3
I use a mostly flat structure and rely on tags to categorize my bookmarks.

Usually if the info is somewhat important to me, I'll copy the snippet I need
into a notebook (Joplin, I use tags there as well), and also send a request to
archive the page on the Wayback Machine as a safeguard, so I can search that
URL there later on if needed.

The hardest part is to categorize and tag the content correctly so that you
don't spend a lot of time searching.

------
sfgweilr4f
Add them to a journal I keep. They become part of my day's activity.

I don't use the web browser bookmarks for "keeping" anything. Web browsers
have a tendency to "misplace" them for all sorts of reasons. Brave on ios
recently destroyed all my favorites I had on the empty tab screen when I
recently applied an update. Glad I had them in my journal.

Project related bookmarks go in a file associated with that project.

------
David_R
I've used URL Manager Pro for years...very pleased with it (Mac only).
[http://www.url-manager.com/](http://www.url-manager.com/) It creates a local
bookmarks file; folders/subfolders; search; each bookmark has a Notes field; I
sometimes copy a clip from the website into Notes to act as search bait. I use
it to build a professional library.

------
Tryffel
I too have created command line terminal application specifically for this. My
solution is to be able to add any metadata to bookmarks with full text search.
No release yet, there are bugs but it's perfectly usable (have been using it
for months now).
[https://github.com/tryffel/bookmarker](https://github.com/tryffel/bookmarker)

------
mathnmusic
I decided to make my own system, but I wanted one that gets better as others
use it. The idea is to find everything related to a learning resource (book,
summary, author's TED talk, podcast) on a single page, asking with other
users' reviews and famous experts' recommendations. Do give it a try:

[https://LearnAwesome.org](https://LearnAwesome.org)

It's FOSS, of-course.

------
scumbert
The bookmark manager built into the latest version of Microsoft Edge is
adequate and inoffensive

My philosophy is that the bookmarks toolbar is for "tools" and things I want
myself to visit more often (a page for a good habit or a project)

Other bookmarks are split into basic categories like "Media" (A/V content),
"Vintage" (old/nostalgia websites), "Games" & etc.

------
MiracleUser
I use my bookmarks religiously

 __Bookmark Folder __: __Description __

Files : Browser based files I want easy access to. These are generally static
pages or anything I do data entry into (google drive docs, flowcharts). Things
I could feasibly download a copy of.

Reports : Dynamic pages that let me get a measurement on something

HowTo : I often google how to do something, and when i find a result that i
actually use it goes in here

Tools : Web tools, like JSON pretty print. These are pages that provide an
automatic service of some kind (i.e input / output processes)

Index : Informational Directories. Examples include Code of federal
regulations, RFC pages, interesting / useful wiki articles, cheat sheets,
comprehensive guides that go beyond "howto", repositories, etc

Reading : Blog posts, case studies, technical writings, articles, things meant
to be part of a conversation or a showcase

Communities : Social home pages that are mostly already bookedmarked into my
finger tips like HN, reddit, stack overflow, facebook, etc

Learning : Items that still need to be 'digested'. Stuff from here is often
moved to other folders after I am done with it.

Misc : (a word i only like to use once, if at all, in organizing). Basically,
if all i do is take a glance at something and want to come back to it later -
it goes in here

Each of these main folders denote mutually exclusive types of content (imo).
Within each of these folders I create subfolders as needed to group things
together by topic.

 __Add-ons __

 _Additionally, I use a tab manager add-on. Currently I use "Cluster" for
google chrome but I am looking into switching to TabXpert. When multiple sets
of pages form a cohesive context, I save that context as a collection of tabs.
For example, if I am working on an analytics project I may have various
HowTo's, documentation, files, and Learning tabs open that are all related to
my project. I save that window, and then instead of digging through ALL my
book marks I can keep a running session of relevant pages. Some of which I
know are only relevant for the project and do not need to be bookmarked._

When I start a new project, I collect relevant pages from my existing
bookmarks into a new context.

------
matusnovak
I use this: [https://github.com/go-shiori/shiori](https://github.com/go-
shiori/shiori)

It's a self hosted web application. I host it on my homelab server. It will
also archive the bookmarks so you can view them offline. FireFox and Google
Chrome addons are available too. You can also import bookmarks from Pocket.

------
caviv
Hi, I wrote a tool that I use my self and it works more or less like good old
del.icio.us it is called [https://yabs.io](https://yabs.io) and I would love
if you would be kind enough to try and and give some feedback. Main idea is
tagging - that's help me to find things later when I need this bookmark.

------
blablabla123
The most organized approach I've taken so far was self-hosting Shaarli.
There's also an app and browser extensions exist as well I believe.

Although now I do a more low-key approach, just storing them in a flat list
and for current topics that interest me I create folders. My "focus interests"
change quite rapidly so I don't care about archiving anymore.

~~~
_Anima_
Another vote for self-hosted Shaarli.

I currently have 4319 links, collected over 13 years and 8 days (started with
Delicious, then Pinboard).

Link rot and relevance is an issue, and I rarely go back to links that are
more than a year old.

I don't delete broken links though, I like to think my Shaarli is a fair
representation of my interests over the years.

I recently developed a Shaarli extension for Ulauncher. [0]

[0] [https://ext.ulauncher.io/-/github-sebw-ulauncher-
shaarli](https://ext.ulauncher.io/-/github-sebw-ulauncher-shaarli)

------
bookofjoe
I'm so glad you posted this question. It gave me a reason to see how many
bookmarks I have in Chrome. 32/screen x 33 screens = 1,056 (according to
Siri). My list seems pretty manageable: I search it many times daily for
specific sites, and after all these years have a general idea of where they
are, in terms of top/middle/bottom.

------
fifnir
I threw everything in a checkvist
([https://checkvist.com](https://checkvist.com)) list and generously annotated
every bookmark with tags, now I have bookmarks and attached notes and it's
searchable with tags, it works really good !

I think this offers the exact same thing as the popular pinboard but it's free
!

~~~
maxkir
Yep, Checkvist's Web Clipper allows adding tags via smart syntax, and there
are versions both for Firefox and for Chrome

------
klingonopera
...wow, am I the only one who just exports Firefox's bookmarks into a JSON
file (Backup bookmarks) and uses that to sync accross his devices?

I'm often on trips for a few days to a couple of weeks, and I only need to
shift back and forth between my laptop and desktop.

If I find something interesting on the phone, I just look it up later on a
computer to save the bookmark.

------
nikivi
All my bookmarks live in my wiki.

[https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/](https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/)

Searched and parsed with Alfred workflow.

[https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/alfred-my-
mind](https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/alfred-my-mind)

The bookmarks are links under ## Links heading of any markdown file. Here are
few with some links

[https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/programming-
languages/go](https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/programming-languages/go)

[https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/programming-
languages/go/go-...](https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/programming-
languages/go/go-libraries)

[https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/machine-
learning](https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/machine-learning)

There is lots more. Around 16,000 lines of markdown in the wiki now. Writing
the code to meaningfully parse it now.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/nikitavoloboev/status/12165452379...](https://mobile.twitter.com/nikitavoloboev/status/1216545237948149762)

Here are all the topics included in the wiki. Enough to learn for a life time.

[https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/knowledge/blob/master/SUMM...](https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/knowledge/blob/master/SUMMARY.md)

Oh and the wiki of course does not include private links. Those live in my
main browser (Safari) and are searched with workflow too.

[https://github.com/deanishe/alfred-safari-
assistant](https://github.com/deanishe/alfred-safari-assistant)

And I optimized the top sites to be most popular pages I visit to get my news
on mobile. Accessed by opening new tab.

[https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/my-
ios/blob/master/README....](https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/my-
ios/blob/master/README.md#safari---browser)

On mac I go as far as binding certain sites to open with a single key using
Karabiner. ie pressing b + n opens
[https://hckrnews.com](https://hckrnews.com)

[https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/dotfiles/blob/master/karab...](https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/dotfiles/blob/master/karabiner/karabiner.edn#L769)

~~~
ianamartin
This is fantastic. Thanks for sharing.

------
cyberjunkie
I was thinking about this. Someone ought to make a tool that exports browser
bookmarks into a static, but presentable startpage.

------
ryanmercer
I stopped bookmarking 99% of stuff the better part of a decade ago. I have
these folders:

\- Church: (links I frequently use related to my religion, such as the tithing
payment portal and shared Google docs)

\- STB: (stuff to buy) stuff I want to buy eventually but aren't immediate
priority and stuff I think I want to buy.

\- STB House: (inside the STB folder) stuff I want to purchase for a house
when I purchase a house. Fiance and I plan to start looking as soon as she has
an employment contract here (teacher).

Then I keep a few things on the bookmark toolbar not in a folder: uvere login
portal, the YouTube subscriptions page, my HRA portal, Hulu, Netflix, Disney+,
my training log (strength athlete).

That's it. I simply don't bookmark anything else anymore. If I want to
reference something later, and think it will be in the near future, I leave it
open in a tab.

If I want to save something for possible future reference I clip the
page/article to Evernote and tag it how my brain works. Frequently this is
Wiki entries (that get archived as the wikiwand version) and lengthy
articles/blog posts. This actually makes the content useful as I can search an
idea/topic in the future and find relevant stuff.

When I find a non-fiction kindle title useful, I open it in Calibre and print
it to PDF, I then add the PDF to Evernote as well and tag it accordingly.

------
mraza007
I have my bookmarks on google sheet and served using api. I am using flask to
serve those over the web. Added a search functionality to make it easier to
search for it Anyways you can check it out [https://bookmarks-
flask.herokuapp.com/](https://bookmarks-flask.herokuapp.com/)

------
PeterisP
I put them in Evernote together with other notes and papers and stuff, and
it's searchable there.

For dynamic content I save a bookmark, but for various articles and posts I
can save the whole readable content which is nice, because otherwise if I want
to follow up a five year old bookmark there's a good chance that it's gone
now.

------
protonimitate
I try to only bookmark things that a) I visit repeatedly (multiple times per
day), b) are not available from the "landing page" (filtered views, sub pages,
complicated urls... anything that takes more than one click to get to), and c)
are not easily memorized.

Anything thats "read later" goes to pocket.

Everything else just gets googled.

------
winternett
I just create a new folder and that pushes all the other ones to the bottom of
the pile, and then I forget everything more than 1 year old... Forwards ever!
:/

Seriously though, I can't believe it's 2020 and browser makers haven't updated
the way bookmarks are saved, they should have had search functionality years
ago...

~~~
yboris
Google Chrome has bookmark search now :)

~~~
winternett
Yes, within the bookmark manager, but not on the main search bar... It should
be much easier to use in that way... :/

------
exitnode
A little bit complicated but I organize my bookmarks in Markdown and put them
on my website which is generated by Hugo.

------
minieggs
I have a git repo at ~. .gitignore includes * with some exceptions,
~/.config/qutebrowser being one of the exceptions.

Edit: I mostly ignore mobile but I created
[https://smscp.xyz/](https://smscp.xyz/) which I use to transfer text snippets
such as URLs if I care enough.

------
shepptech
I use start.me It is free to use, but I paid for the lifetime subscription and
it hasn't let me down. I can use it between browsers, and I can access it from
machines that aren't even my own. It is a browser based solution, but when I
set it to my home page it is almost second nature to use.

------
majora2007
Maybe I'm old school, but I use bookmarks for urls I go to often. Bank,
router, some services I run, hobby sites.

I keep it extremely slim and only add if I'm going to it a lot. If I find
something cool, I generally email it to myself or put it in a draft email full
of links with topics next to it.

------
gedazz
Besides pushing articles I want to read later to Pocket I tend to use the
principle "if I cannot remember the name/address of the website, I do not need
to bookmark or visit it". Browsers nowadays are excellent at autocompletion
which kind of supersedes bookmarks.

~~~
dao-
Your browsing history usually expires after some time (in Firefox anyway,
haven't checked other browsers but they'll likely do something similar). If
you want to keep something long-term, better bookmark it. You can just
bookmark pages as a hint to tell the browser not to expire them, and then
still access them through the address bar, without spending time on organizing
your bookmarks.

~~~
reportgunner
I usually just download an offline copy of the page if I want to keep it long-
term. (I'm talking about text data like guides or articles of course)

Browsing my youtube playlist library I can see that bookmarking is not enough
if the link dies after a couple years.

------
noname120
I use Worldbrain's Memex[1] in order to do full-text search on the pages that
I bookmark / visit. This way I'm able to easily find anything that I've read
in the past.

[1] [https://getmemex.com/](https://getmemex.com/)

------
raveenb
my solution has been bookmark in Pocket -> Zapier -> MakeMySummary -> Todoist

1\. Collect in Pocket 2\. On a new add to Pocket trigger a Zapier task to
Summarize it 3\. Summarize the item in MakeMySummary
[https://www.makemysummary.com](https://www.makemysummary.com). Although this
is optional, i find it easier to have some sense of the item i bookmarked
without reading/viewing it fully. And i built it in my spare time to solve
this exact problem. 4\. On Summary done, Zapier will make a Todoist Task for
me to review at a later time

Added benefit with Pocket is its searchable, so if and when i need, i can look
up something i bookmarked. Google links expire as several noted in the
comments.

------
rasulkireev
When I find something interesting I add it to a daily email digest I send to
myself.

Subject line: 1/24/2019 Rk Digest Body: all the links, plus a description

Not the most efficient, but gets the job done for now. Thinking of a better
way to do it, perhaps some sort of digital garden.

------
ilian
I am using also a tool build myself called TagSpaces, you can see it action
here: [https://www.tagspaces.org/usecases/bookmark-
manager/](https://www.tagspaces.org/usecases/bookmark-manager/)

------
IvyMike
I have a system of home-grown topics, but the real innovation is also having a
system of monthly "2020 Jan" folders for catch all.

This means on the off chance that I get some time to go thru the backlog, I
can tackle a single month and still feel like I made progress.

------
amerkhalid
I used to use WordPress's PressThis plugin to bookmark anything interesting, I
would add categories or tags but I ran into same issue as you.

But I haven't found anything better. I don't want to use a 3rd party closed-
source apps, so it limits my options.

------
karmakaze
Bookmarks are write-only for me. I create them in Firefox (for personal) and
Chrome (at work) and rarely if ever use most of them. As in I don't recall
looking up a single bookmark in the last two months, but also only created a
handful or two.

------
BlameKaneda
I have a folder called "To Read" where I keep articles that I plan on reading
eventually. Within that folder there's a sub-folder called "Read" that's
pretty self-explanatory.

I have an Instapaper account but I almost never use it.

------
xwowsersx
[https://raindrop.io](https://raindrop.io)

~~~
yboris
Looks amazing _and_ has a generous FREE tier!

------
blader_johny
I have this problem too. In fact, I built a tool to better serve my own needs
[0]. It helps to categorize links based on keywords. Best for article links
but also works for generic links, as long as a title and description is
present.

[0] Stackkup.com

~~~
blader_johny
[http://stackkup.com](http://stackkup.com)

------
StavrosK
I made and use [https://historio.us](https://historio.us). It gives me full
text search on my bookmarks, so I can find stuff right away easily. I need to
update it, but it works well.

------
cagrimmett
I use Larder (larder.io) - it has extensions and you can easily pick a
category when you add. Also has good search and RSS feeds for folders. I
subscribe to a few of the feeds that I use as a "read later" bucket.

------
rygxqpbsngav
Using pearltrees.com for a while. I usually keep them well organised but when
I want to find something, i usually do a search. Using historysearch.com these
days, which is more inline with modern day needs i believe.

------
RP_Joe
I use libre office spreadsheets. You can export them to xhtml.

One column for the url another for notes. I have about 10 sheets organized by
topic. I click on the xhtml file and it opens in the browser and my links are
all there.

Very flexible, easy.

------
anentropic
apart from a handful of internal urls I regularly need at work, which I have
as actual web browser bookmarks, I stopped using bookmarks to remember "sites
of interest"

instead I've been using Microsoft OneNote

I can group the bookmarks in a few different ways (Notebooks > Sections >
Pages > block within page) but more importantly I can write some notes about
the link and why it is interesting and how it relates to other links in the
same topic I've saved

the things I like about OneNote are: it's free, works ok, and syncs between
macOS desktop app and Android app

------
m0d0nne11
Ummmm, should I be worried that I bookmarked this for "later" ?

------
cookingoils
I use [https://are.na](https://are.na) for this. Several private channels and
have the FF extension installed so that I can add to them while I browse.

------
reportgunner
I stopped using bookmarks because I just use the browsing history instead.

On browsers I bookmark pages I want to come back to, but it's usually like 3-5
bookmarks before i wipe the browser completely again.

------
pantulis
I use my browser bookmarking system. iCloud for personal use, Google Sync for
work. This is for frequent bookmarks, for archiving I use Pinboard / Evernote
clipper (is really good!)

------
slantyyz
I use Wallabag ([https://wallabag.org/en](https://wallabag.org/en)) which is
similar to Pocket, except that you can self host it.

------
modzu
with thumbnails! i can quickly "see" what the bookmark is about better than i
can tag it. and thumb images are automatic while tags require effort.
generally this and chronological sort gets me by. check out my speed dial
extension for ff, its open source of course, please feel free to comment to
contribute!

[https://github.com/conceptualspace/yet-another-speed-
dial](https://github.com/conceptualspace/yet-another-speed-dial)

------
RocketSyntax
1\. Nameless icons in the bar of most visited pages.

2\. Folders of topic/ project specific info pages.

3\. 'Reading List' Chrome extension for one offs and things I want to come
back to.

Biannual pruning of the folders.

------
z29LiTp5qUC30n
Why not just use emacs org-mode?

[https://github.com/oriansj/orgmode-
bookmarks](https://github.com/oriansj/orgmode-bookmarks)

------
jbillow2000
I've been using Bookmark OS for years and am more than happy with it
[https://bookmarkos.com](https://bookmarkos.com)

------
muzani
I tried managing them, but I've settled on deleting anything over a year old.
There are a lot of interesting things out there, but the opportunity cost is
high.

------
iicc
YSK In firefox you can confine your awesomebar search to just your bookmarks
by typing a * first.

The biggest problem with bookmarks is pages that don't have descriptive
titles.

------
pjfin123
In Firefox I set all my bookmarks with a blank title so the bookmark bar is
just a list of icons from my top sites that I can click on easily + a couple
of folders.

------
franzwong
5000 are too many. I always spend a morning in weekend to read the things I
bookmarked. If I don't read them, that means they are not that important.

------
silicon2401
Not interested in people's custom projects, nor having my bookmarks coupled to
a browser. Currently I have bookmarks with my chrome profiles, but I'm
planning to move them all to a simple, personal archive.

* At the very least, I just need a text file with a dump of links * More interesting would be something more useful like a database with titles, comments, maybe even saved copies of pages * Most awesome would be my own, simple, html home network website where I can navigate my bookmarks visually, have search, etc.

Any suggestions for making this process easier would be very welcome

------
crazypython
I use an app, DevonThink. It lets me put downloaded pages into folders, with
an auto classification function. I have full text search on the pages.

------
zylyye
I often used a Chrome extension called Toby, it has some essential feature:
1\. easy to categorize 2\. sync on a different 3\. share with your friends

------
brentonator
Stopped using them after Firefox sync destroyed my very well curated set I had
about 10 years ago. Now I copy paste text snippets into Google keep.

------
ggregoire
> I have more than 5000 bookmarks on firefox. I tried to add keywords and
> descriptions, but it takes me too much time to do that every time.

Create directories?

------
ThatFave
Im using Firefox aswell and I try to keep every link in its fitting folder,
aswell as tagging them. Works for me but I only have around 250 max.

------
stevekemp
I wrote a simple HTML-page, with a jQuery based presentation layer, which
allowed me to handle them under revision control

[https://github.com/skx/bookmarks.public](https://github.com/skx/bookmarks.public)

Unfortunately opening this now `file://///bookmarks.html` doesn't allow
loading the resource as a security issue. So I've exported all my bookmarks
and deleted them.

I have the old history for reference, but I've just decided not to bookmark in
the future.

------
statictype
I used to use pinboard.in - now I just put everything I want to read into
Instapaper.

I hardly bookmark sites that don't contain articles for reading.

------
tonetheman
This is a funny post. I wrote my own too.
[https://savedbits.com](https://savedbits.com)

------
sheinsheish
I try to keep them on a minimum. Either act upon them or delete them. I value
my time. Safari / Firefox are ok for this :)

------
dksidana
I will recommend trying out [https://refind.com/](https://refind.com/)

------
Yhippa
* the native bookmarks management system in Google Chrome

* random items in Google Keep

* Instapaper

* Pocket

I am not proud of this. The last time I felt under control is when I used
del.icio.us.

------
rooundio
Switched to [https://refind.com](https://refind.com) instead of bookmarks.

~~~
erikig
How does this work? The name and the promise is great but I'm skeptical.

------
jontas
I really love Instapaper. I have the chrome extension installed so whenever
I'm on a site I want to bookmark I just do cmd-shift-s. Instapaper bookmarks
it and saves/indexes the full text. When I want to look for it later I can
search pretty easily. I don't use it much for offline reading, more as a
simple way to search through everything I've read or want to read so I can
quickly find a link again in the future.

------
buboard
i have made my own (because why not):
[https://pinplz.com/](https://pinplz.com/) . I tried to make it as simple as
single-pressing the bookmarklet because usually i have nothing to add to the
bookmark. plus it saves an archived copy

~~~
afita
Cute. Does it search within the cached pages? What's the search performance
for very large bookmarks collections (10000+ bookmarks)? Is it possible to
import / export / backup?

~~~
buboard
none of the above. but i will try to implement them soon

------
rarrarrarr
The real question: How are people bookmarking this post? Myself, I'm saving it
within hn.

------
bullen
[http://tentacle.rupy.se](http://tentacle.rupy.se)

------
jafingi
I use Pocket and tags in there. Also downloads the sites for offline /
persistent storage.

------
juliops
I use groupmarks.com very cool. You can share with team, screenshot, organize
them, ...

------
jmercouris
I use Next browser to handle my bookmarks, tagging, searching filtering,
etc...

------
jhoechtl
Firefox bookmarks. Sync and powerful search in the speed bar with mnemonics

------
bluehatbrit
I used to work at the company that built [https://gurn.io/](https://gurn.io/)
it's a bit different to bookmarks but the sharing features have been amazing.
My entire team at work uses it now.

The tldr is it maps urls to key words / phrases that we input. Those mappings
go into a shared list, using the browser extension you can then search for
them in the browser bar.

We tend to plow in tons of stuff, some of which we may never use, but
countless times I've bashed in a phrase out of pure hope and found a team
member or me in the past have added the resource in.

Lists are a bit like repos, you can have private ones just for you or you can
share them, and they can all be searched at the same time.

It's a bit rough around the edges, but it's free at the moment for non-
enterprises.

------
pdm55
I use emotional memory.

Examples:

Was it to do with climate change? Check the emails to my sister.

Was it some geeky thing? Check the emails to my brother.

Was it to do with teaching? Check the hyperlinks list that I created in MS
Word (Outline view).

Was it ego-boosting? Check my HN comments.

Was it to do with other interests, such as shares, bridge, Twitch, solar, …?
Check my Chrome folders.

Was it political, e.g. Trump? Check my MS Edge browser bookmarks.

Was it software related? Check my Facebook "Saved" list.

Was it biology-themed? Check my Facebook posts.

Is it a link needed daily? Make it a shortcut on my Edge/Chrome start-up page.

This gives a number of categories that are easily remembered, because of the
emotional connections, and can be readily searched.

Lastly, I mostly use Chrome, because if I don't explicitly save a recent
interest, I can quickly find it with Chrome's History (Ctrl-H).

------
arbol
The simplest way - I don't have any!

------
gotrythis
I love papaly.com. It is extremely good.

------
chimichangga
simple: I email the link to myself with keywords in subject, message, etc.

------
rorykoehler
If it's good enough to remember I'll find it again. No need to save them

------
aantix
I miss Delicious.

------
textread
helm-chrome-bookmarks inside of emacs

------
catacombs
Pinboard.

