EdTech 180 #4 - Google Chrome Bookmarks Bar

The Bookmarks Bar in Chrome is much more useful than I realized. I was working with a student on saving some bookmarks, when I noticed options I have never seen before. Keep reading below, or watch the video (or both) to see what I mean.

You can show or hide the bookmarks bar by clicking the three vertical dots (I like to call it the snowman) in the top right corner of the Google Chrome Browser, then click bookmarks, then “show bookmarks bar”... or by using the keyboard shortcut to toggle it on and off. That’s Ctrl+Shift+B for windows or ChromeOS users, or Command+Shift+B for the MacOS users out there. I noticed that while the controls for showing or hiding the bookmarks bar still work in a new tab, they did not take effect until you loaded some content in the tab.

Note that the bookmarks bar always shows on the new tab page, even if you’ve hidden it in other tabs. Once you load content into the tab, the bookmarks tab will go away.

To add a site to the bookmarks bar, navigate to the site you’d like to add, and click the star at the end of the Omnibox (that’s the address bar in Google Chrome) then click add bookmark. This will open a dialogue box asking where you want to save it, and what you want to call it. This dialogue box also includes some folder creation and organization options, and the ability to remove the bookmark from the bookmarks bar.

Once you bookmark a site, the star fills in. You can click the star any time you want to make changes to this particular bookmark.

Once you have some of your most useful bookmarks in the bar, you can reorganize them however you want by clicking and dragging them around. Sort them, reorder them, move them into and out of folders with just a click and drag.

Speaking of folders, you can create a new folder by right clicking anywhere on the bookmarks bar, then clicking add folder. Folders have TONS of uses, and can be nested… meaning you can put folders inside of folders. This can save you space and keep you organized, but there is a much more magical use for folders in the Bookmark bar.

Let’s say you organize all the links you use for your classes by unit and lesson. You’ll make folders for each unit, and place folders for each lesson inside the appropriate unit. Then you put all your links you need for that lesson inside the lesson folder. You can open every link at once by clicking on the unit folder, then RIGHT CLICK on the lesson folder and choose the appropriate option.

Speaking of saving space on the Bookmarks bar, one of my favorite tips for websites with a distinctive favicon is to delete the text from the bookmark and leave just the icon. To do that, right click on the bookmark you want to edit, click edit, delete the text in the name field, then click save. You’ve now got a bookmark that is just the favicon.

There is also a bookmarks manager. To access it, you can right click on the bookmarks bar then click bookmarks manager... click the snowman, bookmarks, then bookmarks manager… or use the keyboard shortcut. Option+Command+B on MacOS, or Ctrl+Shift+O in Windows or ChromeOS. The bookmarks manager allows all the same editing options in one place. Change names, drag to reorder or reorganize to folders, etc.