How to export Google Chrome/Chromium bookmarks

Posted on October 23, 2008 at 5:45 am

If you haven’t already noticed, Google Chrome does not yet have a way to export bookmarks so that you can sync the bookmarks between two computers! Very annoying if you have a bunch of Google Chrome bookmarks that you have to move to another computer before formatting or just as a backup.

Anyway, if you search “export Google Chrome” bookmarks in Google, you will probably hit this article first from Google Chrome Board. It basically tells you to install SQLite Manager in Firefox and write a query to export your bookmarks. Kind of a pain in the butt!

Then someone else in the comments just went ahead and wrote a program to do the whole thing for you without having to install SQLite! You can download the program to export the Google Chrome bookmarks here.

However, that still did not solve my problem because I don’t have Google Chrome installed, I have Google Chromium installed! So the program only looks into the user data folder for Chrome and exports the bookmarks into a HTM file.

If you want to export Chromium bookmarks, you have to two a few things. Firstly, download the LATEST version from the Chromium nightly build site. Download the mini_installer.exe file and run that. It will automatically update the Chromium version to the latest version. Note that it does not give you any kind of message saying it finished, so just watch the icon turn into a rotating glass and then back to a normal icon when it’s done.

Once you have installed the latest version of Chromium, then navigate to the following location on the computer you want to export the bookmarks FROM:

C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\Local Settings\Application Data\Chromium\User Data\Default

In that folder, you will now see a file called Bookmarks. Go ahead and copy that file to the computer you want to transfer the bookmarks TO. Also, make sure to update the version of Chromium on the destination computer to the latest version.

You will copy the file to the same location on the new computer. Then simply restart Chromium and all of your bookmarks will now be there! So as long as you are using the latest version of Chromium, you can backup your bookmarks by just copying this one file.

Note that if you update to the latest version of Chromium on your current computer, you will still have all your search history and bookmarks intact, it just updates the EXE file, but does not delete any data.

If you are still using Chrome, just use the program I mentioned above. Any problems exporting your Chromium bookmarks? Post a comment! If you’d rather not have to deal with this ever, you can use a service like Only2Clicks, wherby you can save your bookmarks into your home page. Enjoy!

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7 Responses to “How to export Google Chrome/Chromium bookmarks”

Pengo said on : October 27th, 2008 at 5:30 am

On vista the path will be C:\Users… instead of C:\Documents & Settings\

Techie said on : November 6th, 2008 at 9:59 pm

can u give the full path in vista…..

yaz said on : November 9th, 2008 at 2:28 pm

Thank you

Mark Clouden said on : November 11th, 2008 at 11:32 am

Updated today to support the latest Chrome builds as well as Chromium (default profile). Just in case, I made it so that it will still work with old installs of Chrome (starred table).

Chafik said on : November 17th, 2008 at 11:22 am

Hey guys ! Good news ! you have to try it to believe it; there is a freeware called transmute that transfers all your bookmarks from any browser to any browser (major browsers)in one click. here is the website where you can download the freeware: http://www.gettransmute.com/

Hope I’ve been of some help.

FC said on : November 20th, 2008 at 12:21 pm

i’d not trust any 3p freeware for copying bookmarks, copying a file is the best way

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