Choosing the best bookmark manager
Choosing the best solution for organizing bookmarks in your browser
You need a tool that allows you to manage your collection of links - organize easy access, sort by category, remove duplicates and broken links, synchronize everything between devices. Read about the best solutions for 2022.
“Bookmark” and “link” are used synonymously in this article, i.e., they mean the same thing - a saved link to a site or other content.
Browser
To start with, any modern browser already has a built-in bookmark manager. As a rule, it is not particularly handy or functional, but it will suffice if you have a small collection of links and content. You can add/delete, sort, search, export, and import links in this manager. When you have a lot of links, you need to look for a bigger solution.
Links can be visually separated by empty links, using symbols in their names. In Firefox there are special inserts for this purpose.
Frequently used links can be grouped into folders and placed on the quick access panel. Everything you need will always be at your fingertips.
On the same panel, you can hold much more links, if you delete the text from them with the name of the site and leave only the icons.
If the link belongs to different categories, you can create duplicates and place them in different folders. But it is better to choose one main category and keep only one link.
If you are writing a term paper, a scientific paper or a book, use special software like Zotero, Mendeley or Scrivener - there are much more options than browser bookmarks.
Raindrop
Most review articles begin with this solution.
Raindrop is suitable for ordinary users, creative artists, and even advanced techies. It is a versatile manager not only of bookmarks, but of any other content you want to save while working online - articles, photos and videos, books and any other documents.
Saved content can be organized into collections, arranged visually with built-in icons, tagged, and selected through filters. Removing duplicates and broken links is also possible, but only in the paid version.
If you’re an advanced user you can customize and automate your processes using services IFTTT and Zapier as well as the public API. Basic content search is available in the free version. When you subscribe, the service additionally offers a search in the content of the documents themselves - web pages and PDF files.
Raindrop automatically backs up bookmarks and files in case of disaster, and the paid version also allows for permanent preservation of web pages, including on Dropbox or Google Drive, in case the original is no longer available online.
Content is handled through secure channels. It’s nice that even in the basic version there are no ads and no limit on the number of links, collections or devices on which you can use this service.
Supported Platforms: Raindrop.io is available as an extension for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. There is also a web app and native apps for Windows, Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Android.
Official site: https://raindrop.io/
Start.me
Another rather interesting solution is Start.me. It is not only a bookmark manager, but also a way to organize the start page of your browser. In addition to a collection of links, you can add notes, tasks, and other informational widgets - from clock and weather, to financial and Google analytics. Other features of this solution that catch your eye first:
An interesting way to organize and present bookmarks is in the form of tiles on the browser’s home page. It’s a well-designed system compared to what most browsers offer. Plus, it’s just very convenient.
If you’ve built a themed collection of links or just want to share your advanced homepage, you can send a request to the developers and they’ll add your page to a special gallery.
The gallery is similar to “Rate My Setup”, only for links. It’s always interesting to see what others are using. Here, for example, is a collection of links for developers: Learn Programming & Websites About Software Development. Click on the additional tabs at the top of this page to see more links. You can see the rest of the collections here.
Another interesting feature is Top Websites. The ranking is based on counting the number of links of all users. In other words, if the majority of people add YouTube to their bookmarks, this very site gets the first place in the rating of this service.
Supported platforms: Start.me is available as an extension for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, IE and Edge, and other browsers. There are also apps for iOS and Android.
Official page: https://start.me/
Papaly
The idea of this bookmark manager resembles Start.me, but this solution is much simpler. The interface, though pleasant in appearance, is a bit rougher and quite “thoughtful. It responds to clicks so slowly that it is noticeable and can be annoying. Nevertheless, it has all the necessary functions for storing and organizing bookmarks.
Links can be grouped into categories that can be color-coded and additionally save your notes to each category and link. There is a special quick access panel to work with frequently used bookmarks.
The service has a search facility for both your saved bookmarks and other publicly available collections. Here are, for example, links to Python resources saved by active users of this service.
Supported Platforms: Available only as an extension for Chrome. There is an app for iOS, but only for the US market.
Official page: https://papaly.com/
Ninja
Bookmark Ninja is a purely online storage for all your bookmarks. For this reason, it can be used in any browser - Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, Internet Explorer, Opera, Brave and others, as well as on any platform - Windows, macOS and any mobile device.
Bookmarks are displayed in two ways - as a panel with tabs, each of which can have its own categories, or as a simple list. You can customize the panels to your liking, and there are built-in sorting and searching.
The list view gives you more detail on each link and the ability to do group operations on them - move and delete them, and the ability to add, and edit tags to them. Plus find and remove duplicates and dead links.
All stored information is available only to you, but individual links or groups can be shared with friends or colleagues via a public or password-protected link if you wish.
Unfortunately, Bookmark Ninja doesn’t have a free version, but there is a one month trial period, so you can check out the service in real use and decide if it’s right for you. If you pay one year in advance, the price will be $1.99 per month.
Supported Platforms: All browsers and platforms, since it’s available as a web app only.
Official website: https://www.bookmarkninja.com/
Elink.io
Bookmark management is essentially only a small part of the functionality of this solution. Of course, you can only use this part, especially since working with links is available for free and without any restrictions.
The other two parts are the collection and the automation of working with content. In short, any collection of links using built-in templates can be designed to be published on a site or in a newsletter. But since it is beyond the scope of our topic, we will not consider them here. What is available for working with bookmarks?
All bookmarks can be organized in folders and subfolders, with the ability to edit the title, description, annotation, visible and internal tags, by which you can search and sort links.
When saving a link, elink allows you to select any picture from the page you’re saving, automatically create and save a screenshot of that page as a link image, or upload any image from your device. This visualization makes it easy to identify the link you want.
A collection of bookmarks can be displayed as images or a list, searched and filtered by titles, keywords, content type, tags, dates and other elements. The search works well and allows you to quickly find the links you’re looking for.
Supported platforms: Available as an extension for Chrome, Firefox and Edge.
Official page: https://about.elink.io/bookmark-manager
Lasso
Lasso makes it easy to save and organize all your interesting finds on the web. The application positions itself as a tool for organizing research on the Internet with a bookmark manager function.
The solution improves the standard bookmarking system by providing many ways to save, search, browse, collaborate and organize them. Existing links can be imported, and new links can be added via an extension or bookmarklet (a small JavaScript program saved as a browser bookmark).
Bookmarks can be organized into collections, for which standard templates are available. When you add a link, you can edit its title, description, and categorize it with tags. There is also an option to add an image for easier link identification.
There are four types of collection displays in the app: links with descriptions, a table with filters, link cards, and a geo map. These are all good for researching and comparing information, but maybe you’ll find this type of link display handy, too.
Collections of bookmarks can also be shared through social networks or a special page. Here’s an example of such a page: https://www.lasso.net/go/link/dfXKCT. And of course, with Lasso you can access your bookmarks anywhere and on any device.
You can use the app for free for yourself and for teams of up to five people.
Supported platforms: Available as an extension for Chrome and other browsers. There are mobile applications for iOS and Android, but apparently the developers do not have enough resources for everything - the applications have rather low ratings.
Official page: https://www.lasso.net/go/
Another universal and very popular solution for saving interesting content from the web. In fact, this is its main purpose, but using the service as a bookmark manager is a bit of a creative approach to the task :). Nevertheless, there are some handy features that allow you to use it for bookmark management.
There are several ways to save content in Pocket. You can add a link directly in the web app itself. Another option is to install an extension available for all major browsers. The button works simply and silently, so it is not possible to add tags. You can do this later, already in the service itself.
The next way to save content is to send a link via email to a special address. And as the cherry on the cake, Pocket integrates with more than 1,500 different applications, allowing you to save content from almost anywhere.
All saved links can be viewed directly in your browser or in apps. They can be categorized and sorted using tags, added to favorites or archived. In the text of any article you can highlight important parts with a virtual marker and later view these fragments in a special section. Text articles and videos are also automatically placed in the appropriate groups.
Pocket has native applications for iOS and Android, Windows and macOS, which is very convenient and makes it possible to work with content on any mobile device. The Pocket API is available for developers.
Paid version will help you save content even if the original does not exist anymore, suggest suitable tags, conduct full text search and provide a wider selection of fonts.
Supported platforms: Web interface, extensions for Chrome and Firefox, mobile apps for iOS, Android, Windows, Windows and macOS apps.
Official page: https://getpocket.com/
Booky.io
A simple online bookmark manager that focuses on ease of use, customization, security, and speed.
Existing links can be imported, new ones can be added via extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Edge. There is a bookmarklet for other browsers. It is possible to install applications on macOS and Windows.
All bookmarks can be organized into collections, each of which can have many categories. Links can be color-coded and moved between categories as needed.
Supported platforms: Extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge.
Official page: https://booky.io/
Others
There are links to other, less popular solutions on various resources. Some of them are collected here in case you want to see them.
Check back this post from time to time, as the list may be updated. Share your solutions on any social media and maybe it will make it to this list as well.
Good luck!