Dual-pane file managers are a lifesaver, especially if bookmarks are part of your daily browsing routine. Having more than one pane improves managing and browsing bookmarks. You will find them highly convenient for organizing bookmarks and multitasking. If you are interested in managing browser bookmarks, you have come to the right place! Google Chrome, Opera, Edge, and Firefox users can turn to the Bookmarks Commander extension to get everything done the easy way.

Inspired by the good old Norton commander, the add-on makes your life much easier. All you have to do is install it on your browser and pin it to the toolbar area. The interface opens when you click on the toolbar button. Of course, you can configure a shortcut for the extension to open the interface. For instance, on a Chromium browser, open chrome://extensions/shortcuts in a browser tab. Find the extension and assign a custom shortcut for this extension. As you would have gotten the idea by now, two panes are displayed by the extension. By default, both pans browse the root directory of your bookmark tree. This extension persists in each view after a restart. So you can browse your favorite folder, and you will have it on the next visit. If you wonder why the editing buttons are disabled on the root directory, it is due to the limitation on editing the top-level directory. Like other bookmark managers, you cannot modify the top-level bookmarks folder here.

Preview

When the interface is open, open a bookmarks folder to put it to use. It would list the bookmarks and folders in four columns to display the name, creation, and modification dates. Also, there is a column for the links. For editing the selected entry, use the tools menu at the bottom of the view. This view edits the selected entry of the active pane.

To create a new bookmark, click inside the pane that needs modification and select the entry, or use the left and right arrow keys to move to the pane. The top and bottom arrow keys change the selected entry on the active pane. To save a new bookmark, press the “New Bookmark” button (Ctrl + B or Command + B) and provide a shortcut name and the link. Similarly, you can create a new folder and place items in there.

Users have three copy options to copy bookmark properties (ID, Link, and Title). This id is a unique number assigned internally to each bookmark. You may need it for sorting or internal usage. If nothing happens when a copy is requested, chances are that you have not selected a bookmark on the active pane.

As for multitasking, you can select the desired pane for moving folders or bookmarking a directory. Navigate the folder on another pane and choose the right or left arrow keys depending on where you want to move it. To jump to the parent folder, press the “..” entry. To reset, press the “Root” button (Ctrl + O or Command + O). This action resets both panes to the root of the bookmarks tree. You can even reset only the active pane with Ctrl/Command + Shift + O key combination.

The extension supports a mirror action that navigates the current directory on the inactive pane. You can use this action to sort items inside a single directory with Ctrl/Command plus left and right arrow keys or relatively navigate to parent or subdirectories. Note that this extension always places new items or moved ones after the selected entry of the pane. So in case you are sorting a folder, first use the mirror button (Ctrl + M or Command + M) to mirror the inactive pane. Then adjust the active entry for the items to be placed after.

This extension also provides a search view on each pane for finding bookmarks by providing their URL or name. The search view is live and updates itself when needed.

There are many keyboard shortcuts that the plugin supports. To view the list, move your mouse over a button. To see the entire list use the official FAQs page. Here is the list of important ones:

  • Press the Enter key or double-click to open the bookmark in this tab
  • Use Ctrl + F or Command + F to search for a query
  • Use Ctrl + Shift + F or Command + Shift + F to find duplicated bookmarks in the current directory. To find all duplicates, first reset the pane to the root of your bookmarks.
  • Use Ctrl + T or Command + T to update the title of a bookmark
  • Use Ctrl + L or Command + L to update the link of a bookmark
  • Use Ctrl + Shift + S or Command + Shift + S to sync the bookmarks of two folders which each other. This action creates missing bookmarks in each folder.
  • Use Use Ctrl + J or Command + J to sort items in A-Z order. Ctrl + Shift + J or Command + Shift + J sorts in Z-A order.

The extension’s interface can be configured from the right-click context menu over the action button. Users can access any of the three possible options by clicking on the button including open in popup view, open in a browser tab in the current window, or open in a standalone window.

Conclusion

After you have finished reading the post, you will know how to use Bookmarks Commander. As it is open source, you can easily download it for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.