Sharing part of my bookmarks between Chrome profiles.

April 18, 2018 7:52 AM

So, because of the nature of what I do, I sometimes wind up screen-sharing with someone else while I'm coding. I like having all of my code bookmarks on my usual personal Chrome profile, because I really don't want to juggle Chrome windows back and forth all the time. But when I'm screen-sharing, I'd like to be able to switch to a profile that ONLY has my code bookmarks, and not, for example, all my fandom stuff. Is there a way to sync just, say, one folder between the two?

A couple folders and a couple select bookmarks from my toolbar would be even better, but if it could just capture a Code folder and nothing else that'd be a good start.

Tools that cost money are fine. I'm primarily having this problem when using Chrome on my Mac. Ability to also sync this with other browsers would be nice but not necessary, or other ideas about how to solve this workflow problem that don't involve letting people I'm programming with know all about my personal life. I definitely prefer these to be in my browser bookmarks, though, not something I need to visit another page to use.

posted by Sequence to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

If these are bookmarks that you mainly read rather than write, it might not be too inconvenient to create a simple handmade HTML page full of links, stick it in a folder somewhere, add a link to its file:// URL to all the Chrome profiles you use, and just keep it open in a tab.

Bonus feature: browser agnostic!
posted by flabdablet at 9:03 AM on April 18, 2018

Response by poster: Unfortunately, I'm adding stuff to this very regularly, which is part of what makes it inconvenient to just maintain two separate profiles--I'd have to remember to regularly switch to the other profile to add new stuff or just stop doing tech-related browsing in my main browser window.
posted by Sequence at 10:07 AM on April 18, 2018

I love linkagogo.com
It has a lot of features, including item aliases so the same bookmark can be in multiple folders.
It can import all your bookmarks, and you can designate folders to be public. This lets you make a public webpage. Bookmarklet makes it easy to add to, and you can have 32k of html formatted notes per bookmark.
Nice premium feature is that it will give you a weekly email of all your bookmarks, so if the service disappears (remember Ma.gnolia?) you won't lose everything.
posted by Sophont at 1:37 PM on April 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Could you run different browsers for this? For example, have Firefox be your code only setup and Chrome is your everything? This would let you put a wall up between them (autocomplete, history, etc).
posted by msbutah at 1:37 PM on April 18, 2018

I have two logins on chrome, and regularly have both windows open.
One is a work chrome (tied to a work email) and the other is tied to a personal email. The work email account has all the work-based links in it, and the personal has the personal ones.

When I screen share, I shut down the personal browser (or more specifically keep it on t he second screen t hat I am not sharing)... I've found it helps me code and work if the only things in the browser I am looking at is work-related.
posted by niteHawk at 2:27 PM on April 18, 2018

Response by poster: I've found it helps me code and work if the only things in the browser I am looking at is work-related.

I have not found any solutions here that really do bookmarks sync rather than just adding some other kind of bookmark system, so that was kind of disappointing, but even more so is that this statement is probably completely true and I'm very grumbly about that. So I'm just going to wind up sitting down and just moving all my existing bookmarks/settings/extensions into a new profile specifically for dev stuff, and it will probably be a good thing for my distraction levels anyway.
posted by Sequence at 10:20 AM on April 30, 2018