How to find duplicate or broken bookmarks in Google Chrome

Bookmarks Clean Up is a browser extension for the Google Chrome web browser that adds bookmark clean up options to the browser.

Chrome users who use the browser's bookmarking functionality extensively will run into broken, redirecting or duplicate bookmarks eventually.

While it may be possible to go through the list of bookmarks manually to find duplicate ones or those that are broken, automation may speed up the process significantly.

Bookmarks Clean Up

https://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/up...s-clean-up.png

Bookmarks Clean Up is a well designed browser extension for Chrome to assist users when it comes to the process.

Find and remove duplicated bookmarks manually and in batches, get rid of broken bookmark links and empty folders.

Installation of the extension is straightforward. The extension requires permissions to read and change bookmarks, and to read and change data on all visited websites. The second permission is required for the broken link checking component of the extension as it is used to verify if a page loads and does not return errors.

It suggests to create a backup of the bookmarks before you run any operations; a sound advice considering that it is impossible to restore deleted bookmarks in the Chrome browser.

To backup bookmarks in Chrome do the following:

1. Open the Bookmarks Manager in the browser by loading this URL in the address bar: chrome://bookmarks/
2. Select Menu > Export Bookmarks.
3. Pick a location to store the bookmarks.

The extension displays all available options in the interface when you activate it with a click on the extension icon in Chrome's main toolbar.

The following options are provided:

• Find duplicate bookmarks.
• Remove empty folders.
• Merge duplicate folders.
• Find broken URLs.

Remove empty folders deletes all bookmarks folders without any bookmarks and merge duplicate folders merges folders and the bookmarks they contain.

Find duplicate bookmarks checks all bookmarks against each other to find bookmarks that are dupes. These duplicate bookmarks are displayed in groups in the interface afterward.

Options are provided to delete select bookmark entries only or delete duplicate bookmarks in bulk instead.

The broken link checker verifies that bookmarks point to resources that are still available. It lists all bookmarks that return error codes such as 403 or 404, and provides the same options to remove some or all of them.

https://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/up...nk-checker.png

A click on Settings opens preferences for the broken link checker. You can set the maximum number of concurrent requests, the delay between requests, and the request timeout there.

Closing Words and verdict

Bookmarks Clean Up is a useful browser extension for Google Chrome to find duplicate and broken bookmarks in the browser. An alternative for Chrome is the long-standing extension Bookmark Scanner which supports similar functionality. Firefox users may want to check out Bookmarks Organizer.