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Ask HN: Do you use a bookmark manager?

49 points by UltimateEdge ↗ HN
As my browser bookmark folders get more and more messy I feel the need to migrate to a different solution. I'm looking for the ability to add brief comments/notes/tags to the links I save, to record metadata such as: where I found the link, what I thought about it and what it might be useful for.

56 comments

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slater
Yes.

https://pinboard.in

neets
I migrated to Raindrop.io recently for folders, better UX with previews, highlights, content type categorization, reader mode, free tier, among other options.
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nivertech
I use a Chrome's builtin bookmarks manager and sync across devices (iPhone, iPad). But it's sync is problematic, and always messes the order or names of bookmarks when syncing on a new laptop. I also lost bookmarks couple of times.

Is there a bookmark manager which integrates with Obsidian? I think it could be a great combination.

spking
https://mymind.com

I like that I don't have to organize anything. I just chuck it in there and let the system organize it for me.

jasfi
Pocket: https://getpocket.com/

Content discovery based on topics of interest works really well too.

antman
Also works on mobile, especially usefult during the dark ages when I could not find a mobile browser that accepts plugins (now I use kiwi on Android)
darekkay
I've created StaticMarks [1], an open-source bookmarking tool. My browser bookmarks are my inbox; anything I want to keep long-term goes into StaticMarks. Notes are supported as well.

[1] https://darekkay.com/static-marks/

hiAndrewQuinn
I don't, and I wonder if using one would make the experience of bookmarking things valuable enough that I would prefer it over my current Ctrl+D and forget approach.

I think the problem is I'm too used to remembering the magic incantations used to search for something I need somewhere.

calculated
Will you ever get back to these? I don’t use
znhll
I've been on a quest to tame the bookmark monster. I have bookmarks (collectively over 10k probably) all spread around in different devices, different browsers on different computers, and event in text messages I sent to myself, via whatsapp/sms, over a period spanning 6-7 years.

While I'm not close done curating (the dead/expired/out-of-date links)... I needed to collect it all in one central place, and [linkding](https://github.com/sissbruecker/linkding) is fitting the bill quite nicely. I'm using the tags and description field to annonate and sort the mess of bookmarks. It has a simple to use rest API, uses SQLite, and you can import/export bookmarks using the Netscape bookmarks html format. Best of all, it's OSS you can self-host on a RaspberryPi or even for free on say fly.io.

fragmede
Wait, shit, I'm supposed to be worried about this? I'm still working on bookmarking tabs so I can close them out!
pHollda
Yes. Raindrop.

RSS clients, read-later apps, and bookmark managers are all in the same category in my head. I have no idea why the companies who make the most successful app for one of them doesn't make apps for the others. It's exactly the same kind of person who needs all 3 apps.

tshell
Hard agree. The Readwise folks are the first company I’ve seen to recognize this with their new Reader app: https://readwise.io/read

A little pricey for my needs, but I love the concept and execution.

wcerfgba
I started using Zotero to store papers I found for my PhD research, and now I use it as my bookmark manager as well. I make extensive use of tags, and you can add notes, relate items, store snapshots, ...
honato11
refind.com is pretty amazing. It's like Pocket which I used for many years, but nowadays rarely use. I somehow prefer refind.com over Pocket.
menshiki
I use Raindrop for personal/hobby stuff and Zotero for pieces related to my research. I used to use Pocket and Instapaper but both of them became filled with ads and popups. The performance of Raindrop on Mac is questionable at best but it remains the best service I have tried in recent years. I've heard a lot good about Matter buy my guess is that their VC funders will push them to adopt $XXX/year subscriptions soon, which is certainly something I am trying to avoid.
_Algernon_
Here is what I would want from a bookmark manager:

- Independent of the browser.

- Local (no cloud).

- When adding a new bookmark, a readable, entirely offline copy is stored (something like the SingleFile plugin). This is used as a fallback in case of link rot.

- Good tagging and organization tools.

Does anything like this exist?

diarrhea
I’ve used Pocket for a while, before giving up (poor search, cloud based). Their mobile apps are great though. For now, I have resorted to Joplin (a note taking app) and its web clipper. It ticks all your boxes, except maybe “independent of the browser” (the clipper is a browser plug-in). Joplin itself has tagging, and you can reference your web clips (which are just normal notes) in any way you want, for example summarising and collecting related notes in a dedicated extra note for that topic.
3OCSzk
Looks like you want some sort of note taking/knowledge management software.

Logseq: https://logseq.com can do all that except the third requirement which I think should be a separate software on its own. You could always make a feature request for that though

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rsolva
Yes, if you are comfortable with using the terminal, check out nb.sh.
_Algernon_
This seems the closest to what I want. Thank you!
LunarAurora
https://www.zotero.org/ ticks all these boxes.

Offline copy is called a snapshot when using the zotero connector [1]

Tags and Hierarchies are both first class.

Technically it is not a bookmark manager. But it manages bookmarks (and much more) very well.

[1] https://github.com/zotero/zotero-connectors

UltimateEdge
How does Zotero compare to hypothes.is ? I take it that they're both trying to achieve the same goal of annotating webpages.
LunarAurora
No they are not.

hypothes.is does indeed annotate webpages (publicly and privately)

Zotero is really a "Database" of references. those references could be simple bookmarks.

The lasted version added to ability to annotate stored pdfs (but not webpages.)

hamsterbase
yes, you can try https://hamsterbase.com/

1. 100% 0ffline

2. support selfhosted

3. singlefile supports saving pages directly to HamsterBase via webdav.

   https://hamsterbase.com/docs/integrations/singlefile.html
4. organization with tags.

5. fulltext serach

tacostakohashi
How about using:

* A spreadsheet

* A markdown file, stored in a git repository

tomjen3
This isn't a bookmark manager, but I have migrated from bookmarks/long lived open tags to Apple Notes.

The reason is many: I can organize it easier that way, there is no issue having 50 or 100 links in a note and I can write notes around them if I want.

tardisx
I wrote https://github.com/tardisx/linkwallet

Main itches I was trying to scratch:

* full text search

* no external dependencies

* optimised for self-hosting; simple to deploy and uses minimal resources

nanocat
I use this, running in a docker container on my home NAS, accessible via my ZeroTier. Recommended!!
Vaslo
Always looking for a new one, but sometimes interface is the dealbreaker for me. Any screenshots of yours? Love that it’s already good to go in Docker.
tardisx
The interface is as minimal as the rest of it :-)

I will try to stick an animated gif up on GitHub soon.

pdimitar
Yep, please do. It really helps getting a quick idea knowing what you'll get if you install and use.
P5fRxh5kUvp2th
If it starts to get unwieldy, that's an indication to me that I need to clean up my bookmarks, not that I need more tools to manage them.
rsolva
I can recommend nb.sh for terminal minimalists! Its both a bookmark and note taking shell script that syncs with git.
dxs
Disclaimer: I Am Not An Expert. (I know nothing! Mostly.)

So far I'm sticking with FireFox. When I update my bookmarks, I save them to a JSON file, and then export them to HTML, which I use with my other, non-FireFox browsers.

I also have created a sort of "table of contents" system that allows me to narrow in on similar bookmarks. It's too high-maintenance, but it helps

Example, weekly news links...

02-WEEKLY (heading only)

02-01-WEEKLY (folder containing bookmarks)

02-02-WEEKLY (folder containing bookmarks)

02-03-WEEKLY (folder containing bookmarks)

02-04-WEEKLY (folder containing bookmarks)

02-05-WEEKLY (folder containing bookmarks)

Each of these sections (which are folders) has a different slant: Basic news, Fluff, Food & Health, Science News, Computing News, and so on. Some other categories I have go much deeper, and if I need to revise them it's a major pain.

If eventually I need to do something else, I'll probably adopt or create something with Emacs org-mode.

Example: (I just found this, have no idea if it's actually relevant...) "org-mode for browser bookmarks" at https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/bshrg0/orgmode_for_b..., which points to "org-linkz" at https://github.com/p-kolacz/org-linkz

There is more along these lines at https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=emacs+org+mode+browser+book...

tfsh
I have some very specific requirements for a bookmark manager which nothing has yet satiated, so I may "just" implement these myself:

- Graph based bookmark views where I can hover over nodes to see bookmarks of the same origin.

- Nodes may be clustered/coloured based on folder, however this might be a step too far/not specifically compatible once there are >n nodes.

- The graph would have some of directionality: - I have some ideas here, however this would require iteration to see what works and what doesn't. A quote from Jobs here seems poignant to me, someone fueled not be designing around users, but solving what is technically complex; "Start with the Customer Experience, then work back to the technology".

  - Outgress nodes (A -> B -> C) would show a relationship that these were all bookmarked in the same search journey[1], clicking on any node would bring up a time seried vertically linear panel displaying the nodes.

  - I'm sure (read: hope) there's some useful way to also label ingress and neighbour nodes in some meaningful way, I just haven't yet thought enough about it.
- Finally full text search over the store (probably using SingleFileZ) would be a must due to link-rot.

1: https://9to5google.com/2022/05/04/what-are-chrome-journeys/