Google is shutting down Google Bookmarks. Here are alternatives
Google will shut down its Bookmarks service on September 30, 2021. The service won't be available afterwards anymore and users who use it have until then to export their bookmarks to save them.
Google Bookmarks is a free bookmarking service by Google that is available online and via third-party applications. It should not be confused with the Bookmarks feature of the Chrome web browser, as it is completely separate from Bookmarks.
Google Bookmarks was launched in 2005, predating Google Chrome. You can check if you have bookmarks saved to the service by opening https://www.google.com/bookmarks/ in any web browser.
If you have used Bookmarks throughout the years, you may be looking for an alternative. While you could use your browser's bookmarking feature and sync, it does fall short if you use different browsers or want access to your bookmarks online, regardless of device that you use, e.g. a terminal that you don't own.
Google Bookmarks Alternatives
A Bookmarks alternative should offer a similar feature set, at the very least; this means access via a website and easy management of bookmarks.
Saved -- Saved is a simply online tool. It requires an account but setting up an account is free. Bookmarks can be saved by prepending saved.io/ in front of URLs open in any web browser. These are saved to your account then and you may access all bookmarks from the main site at any time using any Internet browser.
Raindrop -- Raindrop is available as a free and paid service. It has more to offer than just bookmarking support. You can install browser extensions or apps, create collections, use tags and filters, automate saves, and more. Paying members get additional features such as a full text search, duplicate and broken link finder, and cloud backup support.
Pinboard -- Pinboard is a commercial bookmarking service that is available for $22 per year. Pinboard lets you bookmark from any browser, and you may sync the data with Instapaper or Pocket. It features full text search and dead link checks. Browser plugins are available, as are third-party clients.
Mozilla Pocket -- Pocket is available as a free and commercial version. You may use it to save content that you discover on the web. Pocket saves links but it makes articles available on its site as well in a readable way (just the main content). It features a discovery service tags and an archive. The Premium version removes advertisement, saves article copies automatically, better search capabilities and more.
Now You: do you use Bookmarks? How do you manage them?
Slowly buy surely Google is removing so many of their “free” services. I remember when they advertised that Gmail would increase it’s storage limit every day and even had a running meter showing how it was increasing. And then one day…poof… all that disappeared, and Google set a hard cap on everyone unless you gave them your money.
I’ve learned to never trust the availability of any Google service or depend on them in any way.
And that’s why I’m using Google Workspace :)
I’m pretty sure Google Bookmarks is getting retired because hardly anyone uses it anymore. It makes sense. ANY service, free or paid, can get discontinued at any time when a company decides to focus their efforts on other things.
As for Gmail storage, I’ll gladly pay for more storage in ~75 years when I’ve used up the free storage.
They only maintain the services that people use massively, this way they can collect more data from them. If Google Bookmarks has a very small amount of users, then they can’t collect too much data from then, and this in turn makes maintaining the service in question useless, so they shut it down.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
Martin
Free Photos was a service people used massively, and then what happened? It’s not about how massively used it is, but how much revenue it brings in.
That’s why no one who cares about preserving their data should use Google’s services. There are so many better alternatives at this point, some are platform-agnostic which gives you so much freedom compared to a walled garden which is Google (and Apple, and the other ones).
I think that was about the time they removed the corporate motto “don’t be evil”.
I use “https://papaly.com/” and it’s the best way to manage bookmarks I’ve ever used. I use it as a new tab replacement.
Thanks for the information.. Papaly looks like something I can use.
I never understood the point of Google Bookmarks, which were confusing separate from Chrome’s bookmarks. Guess I never will.
I have saved thousands of sources of information to my Google Bookmarks. As I do research for articles I’m writing, I open dozens of web pages. Before I close each page, I bookmark it and add tags so I can find that page again when I write about that topic later. I have hundreds of tags with dates, places and other identifiers. It’s worked well for more than a decade.
Did you find a bookmark app that allowed you to import your GBookmarks? Thx.
Chrome bookmarks are only accessible through the Chrome browser, and now that the api is no longer available to Chromium you can’t sync between your Windows and Linux boxes. Google bookmarks was also accessible using firefox or safari or any other browser.
and yet another Google thing to add to https://killedbygoogle.com/
I never understood why I should store on a platform that can go offline the bookmarks that I need every day so badly?
Also from somebody’s bookmarks, you can figure out marketing-wise what kind of advertisement is best suited for that person.
And I think not only Google does spy on their users.
I highly recommend RainDrop. Very awesome with 10s of thousands or bookmarks.
Google keeps pushing me away. This is one of the services they have provided that I really going to miss.
+1
Started hating Google. Gradually, it’s becoming less meaningful.
I have been using this since 2005 and have 10,000 bookmarks and multiple labels in it.
Does anyone know for sure that Google will actually be shutting it down or just not supporting it?
If you’re relying on any of Google’s smaller properties, you’re always on borrowed time.
I’ve been dreading the day this would come as I really liked Google Bookmarks the way it was with a couple of 3rd party packages I use GBookmarks and Online Incremental Search. There are a number of contenders as replacement and the ones that appeal to me as simple, fast, cheap, stores unlimited bookmarks and closely matches Google Bookmarks are:
Bookmark OS, SiteBar, Saved.io, Pinboard, LinkLocker, Raindrop.io
I don’t know why my response got deleted but I use Bookmark OS https://bookmarkos.com/ which I find works great. It has extensions for browsers and has free and paid versions. It does the job well.
Thanks @leland and @Larry Becque for.suggesting bookmark os. There’s many good alternatives in the.comments but this one is best for the way I use bookmarks. I like the clean interface and ease of use.
Just read this post and installed bookmark os. I am impressed. I am amazed how come I never knew about these bookmark apps! ghacks has been good to me as always. Thanks, Martin
I would not expect anyone who regularly reads a tech blog to be using any Google service besides Gmail, search, Waze or maps. Their shutting down of services has been a running gag for so long that I can’t imagine anyone even thinking of using any of them today.
Of course there was a time before this behavior was so predictable and I truly feel for those who came to love a Google product that has been taken away. At least now we know what to expect so we don’t get fooled again.
Noooo, I love Google Bookmarks for it’s cross-browser support. Which of the suggested replacements offers nested bookmarks?
htps://booky.io is a good replacement
https://booky.io
Nice UX.
Here’s another alternative to consider: https://start.me It’s a bookmark service with advanced dashboard functions I use every single day.
Amazing tool, Mike! I discovered it recently and am very impressed.
I use linklocker.co myself, and can’t recommend it highly enough. It definitely gets the job done for $12 per year.
I like privacy and transparency (i.e. open source). Interestingly and fortunately for this particular function there is software that fulfills my criteria. I use floccus, https://floccus.org/ , but there is at least one other option as well (the name of which I forget at the moment).
OK, fine, I found the other one for you. ;) It’s https://www.xbrowsersync.org/ .
I’ve been using https://www.partizion.io/ for a couple months now and love it. RIP google bookmarks!
I’m an analyst and writer so I’ve been bookmarking resources since 2007 when I started with Delicious. When Delicious closed down, I migrated to Google Bookmarks. I have thousands of bookmarks that I access almost every day. They’re 100% essential so I’m going to have to find a reliable service to replace GB. Paid, free, doesn’t matter. Thanks for all the recommendations.
I emphatically do NOT recommend Pinboard. There’s no customer support whatsoever; emails go unanswered. After subscribing to (paying for!) the archival service for five years, they won’t send me my archive now that my subscription is up. Protect your bookmarks and go elsewhere!
I was using it mainly (free version) before switching to Raindrop.io (which is simply more modern) and I’ve had good experiences with it and contacted it’s author once or twice and got reply in short time. But it was few years ago.
The export doesn’t seem to export labels and notes. Am I missing something or do others have the same issue?
Sorry, it does export labels. I think notes are missing, though.
For some reason, I could have sworn that Google Bookmarks had been shut down years ago. Surprised it stuck around for so long, as I think it was more or less made redundant with bookmarks syncing in browsers becoming a common-place feature.
They really could have built on it and tried to compete with Pocket IMO.
Thanks for the list, Martin! I would add to it https://start.me. It’s a new tab page that helps you organize your bookmarks, feeds and notes.
It has been mentioned in the thread already, but I would definitely add https://start.me to the list. It’s a new tab page that helps you organize your bookmarks, feeds and notes.
Is there no way to retrieve a file with my old Google Bookmarks?
I am hoping there’s a solution for this, too
i have not saved my google bookmark and now want it back, can anyone guide how i can retreive it