Why can't I have two copies of a bookmark in Firefox 3???

June 20, 2008 9:45 PM

Why can't I have two copies of a bookmark in Firefox 3???

If I want to bookmark something twice, that is my business, is it not? Why can't I add a new copy? It only lets me edit the one I have.

I am using Windows XP, if that matters. I am very good at following instructions, so if anyone has any, please share!

Thank you. If I cannot solve this problem, I am uninstalling this version and going back to 2.

posted by AllieTessKipp to computers & internet (9 comments total)

If you really need this, try selecting Organize Bookmarks under the Bookmarks menu, right-clicking on the bookmark you want to have a copy of, and hit Copy. Find its new home and right-click to Paste.
posted by Tomorrowful at 10:06 PM on June 20

I'm guessing that you're doing this because you have different sub folders where the same bookmark is stored? If this is the case, you should look into using tags instead of folders to organize your bookmarks. Each bookmark gets as many tags as you want, and then you can browse by tag.

This makes more sense, in some respects, because you're not storing all the same bookmark information twice on your computer.
posted by chrisamiller at 10:17 PM on June 20

Tomorrowful has the answer, but just to clarify why Firefox 3 behaves this way – I think it wants you to access your bookmarks by searching for them from the location bar, or the bookmarks library. It’s a different system/paradigm from previous browsers.
posted by tepidmonkey at 10:18 PM on June 20

Thank you. That is helpful. Unfortunately it is not as simple as just clicking the little star thingie again. :( Why did they do this?

I have lots of double bookmarks. I store one, and then I have another copy at the bottom of my list to remind me to go there again for whatever purpose, and then I delete it when I've gotten what I needed. I use this method all day for things for work, for reference purposes, especially if I am typing a lot of one specialty on a certain day (I'm a medical transcriptionist). Firefox 3 would just totally screw this up. I need to do this quickly--and all these steps would slow me down considerably. And here I thought this would be faster with this one-click star thing. Phooey.
posted by AllieTessKipp at 10:19 PM on June 20

It sounds like, for your purposes, you might like the “Read It Later” add-on.
posted by tepidmonkey at 10:24 PM on June 20

Couldn't you just tag the item "toread"?
posted by bertrandom at 10:33 PM on June 20

Firefox 3's little star is not the only way to add a bookmark (though this does seem like an unfortunate UI oversight). With the site open in Firefox, drag the favicon (the little icon in the address bar to the left of the URL) into either your bookmarks toolbar or the Bookmarks menu, and then into the folder/place you want to store it. Voila!
posted by chrominance at 10:54 PM on June 20

Try tricking Firefox by adding a question mark and the date (or some other 'unique' string) to the end of the URL for your "new" bookmark.

http://www.metafilter.com/
http://www.metafilter.com/?06/21/2008

This should work for any URL that doesn't already call a script with ?arguments.
If it does, you could try an ampersand (&) before your extra tag instead, although that may or may not work depending on the back-end.
posted by jozxyqk at 3:25 AM on June 21

Seconding bertrandom -- tags are perfect for this sort of thing so you don't need duplicate bookmarks. Just make a new tag called "read" or something and tag any bookmark you would have duplicated with it.
posted by katrielalex at 7:52 AM on June 21