Condensing the Bookmarks Toolbar in Firefox

Posted on March 26, 2010 at 6:15 am

If you have a lot of bookmarks and bookmark folders on the Bookmarks Toolbar in Firefox and they don’t all fit in one row, there is an option for condensing them. The Smart Bookmarks Bar extension can help you by hiding the text on the Bookmarks Toolbar and only showing icons.

Install the extension at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4072.

Before Installation

Before installation of the Smart Bookmarks Bar extension, our Bookmarks Toolbar goes off the end of the screen.

Before condensing the Bookmarks Toolbar

After Installation

Once we installed the Smart Bookmarks Bar extension, the bookmarks on the toolbar are reduced to only their favicons.

After installation of Smart Bookmarks Bar

You will notice that some of our bookmarks look the same after Smart Bookmarks Bar is installed because those sites lack a favicon. If this is the case with some of your bookmarks, that’s alright. All you have to do is hover over a bookmark to display its text, as shown above.

NOTE: All folders on your Bookmarks Toolbar have the same folder icon. You can specify to have the names of folders permanently display, if desired. This is discussed in the Setting Options section below.

To go to a bookmarked site, click on the bookmark on the toolbar, just like before. To access bookmarks in folders, click on the folder and select the bookmark from the menu.

Opening a folder on the toolbar

Setting Options

To set the options for this extension, select  Add-ons from the Tools menu.

Selecting Add-ons from the Tools menu

Then, click the Extensions button at the top of the Add-ons dialog box, and scroll down to the Smart Bookmarks Bar extension. Select it and click the Options button.

Accessing Options for the Smart Bookmarks Bar extension

The Smart Bookmarks Bar Options dialog box displays. If you want the names of your folders to display at all times, as mentioned above, uncheck the Hide bookmarks folders names option.

Smart Bookmarks Bar Options dialog box

To permanently display the text for sites that do not have a favicon, you can uncheck the Hide bookmarks names with no favicon option. However, we have a better suggestion. Leave that option checked and create a folder to contain the bookmarks for sites with no favicon. That way, you can easily see all the names of the sites at a glance without giving up the functionality of the Smart Bookmarks Bar extension.

A folder for sites with no favicon

To move bookmarks into a folder on the toolbar, click and hold on the bookmark and drag it to the folder.

You can see that this extension can make your Bookmarks Toolbar very nice and manageable.

by Lori Kaufman

» Filed Under Computer Tips

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Comments

One Response to “Condensing the Bookmarks Toolbar in Firefox”

  1. Kyle said on :

    Yes, it`s good, but if you have lots of bookmarks it doesn’t really help you.


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