Lots of users prefer Delicious or Diigo (which I personally recommend) to manage and share their bookmarks and Xmarks to keep favorited sites in sync. However, not everyone is ready to switch and get used to these services when you can just save a site right in your browser, where you can see it.

When you start bookmarking lots of sites in Google Chrome, you can easily search for them in the Omnibar or in the Bookmark Manager (Ctrl + Shift + B). Google is beyond famous for its powerful search engine, but when it comes to searching for bookmarks within specific folders in Chrome, you're out of luck. As of right now, there's no obvious way to accomplish searching within certain Chrome bookmark folders, unless you get these extensions.

Using The Atomic Bookmarks Extension To View & Search Chrome Bookmarks By Folder

Atomic Bookmarks is a simple extension that lets you search within folders. From the list of bookmarks it displays in a popup, you can select which folders you want to search in. Here's how to use it:

    1. Install the extension and click on the Atomic Bookmarks icon.
    2. Select the folder you wish to search and type a keyword.

search chrome bookmarks
  1. Press Tab to select the next item in the search results. You can use the Down key to go down the list of results.
  2. Hit Enter to load the bookmark in a new tab (customizable)!

You can customize whether you want to open the bookmark in a new tab, window or the current tab by right-clicking on the Atomic Bookmarks icon and selecting Options. Other options include the ability to see more information of the bookmarks on hover.

search chrome bookmarks

You'll be able to see the type of bookmark (whether it's a bookmarklet which you can't load, or an URL/bookmark), the location or Javascript code, and the date you added the bookmark in question.

search chrome bookmarks

Another cool feature is that it'll look for your search keyword in the URL of the bookmark, not just the bookmark name. Even though it offers handy options, make a note that with this extension, you can't drag and drop, edit or delete bookmarks as its purpose is to help you see in a nice list and filter through your hundreds of bookmarks.

If you would like the list of bookmarks without the search function, you can always add " --bookmark-menu" (without the quotes but with the initial space) to the target (right-click on the Google Chrome shortcut and select Properties) of your shortcut, right after chrome.exe.

search multiple bookmarks

Restart Google Chrome and you should see a new magical button that you get from adding " --bookmark-menu". Click on it to see your bookmarks in a list and decide whether or not to hide your Bookmarks Bar (Ctrl+B).

search multiple bookmarks

Using EveryMark To Bookmark Instantly, Search Within Folders & Delete Bookmarks

EveryMark is an extension that intends to respond as effectively as desktop-file-searching software Everything (which you don't really have to even install). It displays your bookmarks in a nice popup just like Atomic Bookmarks but it offers additional features that Atomic doesn't.

search multiple bookmarks

Let's see how to use it first:

    1. Install the extension and click on the EveryMark icon.
    2. To search by folder, type "\FOLDERNAME" + your search term.

search web bookmarks
  1. Use the Down key to select items from the list of results.
  2. Hit Enter to load the bookmark in a new tab.

Unlike Atomic Bookmarks, EveryMark lets you sort bookmarks by title, URL, folder and date (!) which comes in very handy.

search web bookmarks

You can also right-click on the bookmarks and delete items.

Although EveryMark has some very awesome features, I couldn't help but notice that it can be sluggish at times. Neither Atomic nor EveryMark load bookmarklets, with the difference that EveryMark ignores them in the popup list (so you know they can't be opened), which means you can't search for bookmarklets. If you have plenty of bookmarked sites and wish to do some spring-cleaning (or just plain-searching for old bookmarks), EveryMark will facilitate your work in Chrome.

Did we miss a good extension or an extension-free hack to search within bookmark folders? Please enlighten us in the comments!

Image credit: Alessandro Rei, Harwen