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Google Chrome is one of the most popular web browsers because it is fast and reliable, also because Google has done a good job of marketing it. The Chrome web browser does a good job of allowing its users to sync various devices used by the same account, enabling users to use the same bookmarks, browsing history, autofill data, and various other logs across multiple devices. This synching feature is convenient and useful, however, it may cause the account profile to become cluttered with so many bookmarks that you stop using the bookmarks feature. When that happens, sometimes it’s best to just clear out the clutter and start fresh. Luckily, Chrome offers a few ways to clear out your bookmarks.
1. Delete Bookmarks One-by-One from the Bookmarks Bar
Sometimes you just want to remove some bookmarks from your bookmarks bar:
- Right-click the bookmark on the bookmarks bar.
- Select Delete from the context menu.
Be aware that this method doesn’t require any confirmation so once you’ve selected Delete, the bookmark’s gone.
2. Use the Bookmark Manager
The bookmark manager is a Chrome feature that allows you to view and organize all of your bookmarks. You can categorize them in different folders or arrange them based on their importance. If you’ve synced your devices and you access Chrome with your Google account, you will be able to browse through all bookmarks made on your other devices. Also, if you decide to use the bookmark manager, you will be able to delete entire folders. This makes clearing your list a lot easier.
- In Chrome, go to the Bookmarks pulldown menu and select Bookmark Manager, you can also type Ctrl+Shift+O.
- Select the bookmarks that you want to delete
- Note that for synced accounts, mobile bookmarks will have their own folder. Alternatively, you could also type “chrome://bookmarks”. That will open the bookmark manager in your current tab.
Either method will work. You should see the following folders.
- Bookmarks bar
- Other bookmarks
- Mobile bookmarks
- The list will be longer if you’ve created your own folders. To delete them, simply right click on the folder and select Delete.
- From the bookmark manager page, you can also use keywords to search for specific bookmarks. This allows you to perform very accurate searches and delete just the entries you are sure about.
3. Deleting Browsing History or All Saved Data?
If you want to delete your browsing history and all information saved on your Google account, know that you can’t also delete your bookmarks using the same method. Using the Clear Browsing Data feature only gets rid of cookies, browsing and download history, autofill data, passwords, cached files, etc. Chrome doesn’t have a Profile folder so deleting all bookmarks at once is a different process.
4. How to Delete the Bookmarks Folder in Windows
- Open the Run dialog box or Search box, you can hit the Windows key + r or type run into your Start menu.
- Type “%LocalAppData%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default” and press Enter.
- Locate the Bookmarks file, you might have to scroll down until you see it.
- Right-click it and choose Delete.
This will remove all bookmarks ever created since you’ve installed Chrome on your device. However, it will not delete bookmarks saved on other devices even if the devices are synced under the same account. Also note that for this to work, you should close all instances of Chrome. If you only want to delete bookmarks from a specific account and you deleted something important by accident, you can use the same folder path to recover it. On occasion, Chrome performs backups. These backups include bookmark data. That data is found in the bookmarks.bak file under User DataDefault. If you change the extension of the .bak file to .old, you might be able to recover your recently deleted bookmarks.
5. How to Delete the Bookmarks Folder in macOS
If you feel comfortable with the command line, you can call up Terminal and go the following directory in your user account. Then remove the Bookmarks file with this command: Then next time you open up Chrome, there will be no bookmarks and you can start fresh. Add your first bookmark to get started. If you go back to ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/ you’ll notice that the Bookmarks file’s been recreated. You can delete it again in the future if your bookmarks get too cluttered and you want a fresh start.
Conclusion
Deleting the bookmarks file is a rather drastic measure. If you’re concerned that your list of bookmarks has gotten too large to manage, deleting everything may not always be a good idea. You could also lose important shortcuts to pages that may take a long time to find in the future.Sometimes deleting bookmarks one by one is better even if it takes longer. Keep in mind that a long list of bookmarks doesn’t drain as many resources as having too many cached video files and cookies saved on your account. Of course, if you want to be most efficient, it’d be ideal to organize all your bookmarks into specific folders and do so with all new bookmarks as soon as you save them. Hope this article was helpful for you and solved your entire problem.
