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How to share bookmarks in Google Chrome

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We all have those essential websites and resources we bookmark/favourite in Chrome for later use. Whether it’s for work, research, or personal interest, these saved links are often an invaluable part of our web-browsing workflow. Sadly, when it comes to sharing our Chrome bookmarks, the experience it’s quite tedious and limited. In this post, we will teach you all of the methods to share your bookmarks with anyone, from the easiest to the most involved methods.

Method 1 - Bookmark Llama (The best way)

Bookmark Llama makes sharing bookmarks with others feel like a native feature of Chrome. Whenever you make changes to a bookmark folder that you have decided to share, these changes are instantly viewable by everyone you have invited.

  1. Ensure your bookmark bar is enabled and that you have folders on it.
  2. Signup for Bookmark Llama
  3. Select Share with others from the setup wizard
  4. Give Bookmark Llama access to see your shared folders by installing the extension for Chrome.
  5. Select which folder you would like to share.
  6. Decide who you would like to share the folder with.
  7. Click the share button to confirm that you would like to share this folder.

Method 2 - Multi-Select Copy and Paste

The most basic way to share a list of bookmarks is to copy & paste them into an email or your preferred text-based communication. This method is perfect for sharing a small number of bookmarks in a single folder that will never change.

  1. Open Bookmark Manager by clicking ⋮ in the top right of Chrome and then selecting Bookmarks > Bookmark Manager from the dropdown (alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+O on Windows & Linux or ⌥+⌘+B on Mac).
  2. Hold Shift and select all of the bookmarks you’d like to copy.
  3. Right-click and select Copy.
  4. Paste the bookmark URLs wherever you want to send them or store them.

Method 3 - Partial Export to HTML with a temporary Chrome profile

This method allows for a narrower scope of bookmark exports without having to modify an HTML file. This method is quite a workaround and not a typical use-case of Chrome profiles, but it allows you to overcome all of the limitations of the previous steps without a third-party tool.

  1. Click your profile icon in the top right of Chrome.
  2. Select + Add from the profile menu list.
  3. Select Continue without an account.
  4. Enter a temporary name for the profile and click Done.
  5. A new Chrome window will open with an entirely new profile. Open Bookmark Manager by clicking ⋮ in the top right of Chrome and then selecting Bookmarks > Bookmark Manager from the dropdown (alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+O on Windows & Linux or ⌥+⌘+B on Mac).
  6. Copy the bookmarks you want to export between your existing Chrome profile and the newly created one by right-clicking and selecting Copy , and then paste it to the other profile. This will even allow you to copy entire folders and paste them on your Bookmark Manager page in your other profile.
  7. In the newly created profile, click the ⋮ in the top right of the Bookmark Manager window, select Export Bookmarks.
  8. Save the HTML file and then send this to whomever you’d like to share your bookmarks with.

A temporary chrome profile used to export a specific selection of bookmark folders

Method 4 - Full Export to HTML

If you are looking for a way to preserve the structure of your bookmarks, this method will work for you.

Unfortunately, Chrome doesn’t support exporting a single folder. Instead, you must export all your bookmarks to an HTML file. You can then edit the export file to remove any personal bookmarks. However, this approach isn’t very accessible unless you are familiar with editing HTML files.

An example of exporting all bookmarks in Chrome to HTML

  1. Open Bookmark Manager by clicking ⋮ at the top right of Chrome and then selecting Bookmarks > Bookmark Manager from the dropdown (alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+O on Windows & Linux or ⌥+⌘+B on Mac).
  2. Click the ⋮ in the top right of the Bookmark Manager window and select Export Bookmarks.
  3. Save the HTML file and then send this file to whomever you’d like to share your bookmarks with.

The bookmarks can then be imported by following the same steps, except you’ll need to select Import Bookmarks step 2 and import the HTML file that was sent.

Conclusion

After delving into the many methods of sharing Chrome bookmarks, it’s clear that while there are numerous methods to share bookmarks in Chrome without installing a third-party tool, it’s clear that for the simplest and most feature-rich experience, a browser extension such as Bookmark Llama is required.