If you’re like most people, you probably have a few bookmarks in your browser. But what if you want to group them together so that they can easily be accessed and shared? There are a few ways to do this, but the best way is to use bookmarklets. A bookmarklet is a small program that you can add to your browser’s toolbar. Once it’s added, you can access it by clicking on the bookmarklet’s icon in the toolbar and then clicking on its name. There are many different bookmarklets out there, but here are some of our favorites:

  1. Google Chrome: This browser has an extensive bookmarking feature, so it’s easy to find and add bookmarks to your browser. Just type “chrome://bookmarks” into the address bar and hit return. You’ll see a list of all of Chrome’s bookmarks, as well as any extensions that have been installed with it.
  2. Mozilla Firefox: If you’re using Firefox, there’s also an extension called Bookmark Manager that lets you group bookmarks together easily. Just type “firefox://bookmark/group” into the address bar and hit return. You’ll see a list of all of Firefox’s bookmarks grouped together, as well as any extensions that have been installed with it.
  3. Opera: Opera also has an extensive bookmarking feature, so it’s easy to find and add bookmarks to your browser. Just type “opera://bookmark/group” into the address bar and hit return. You’ll see a list of all of Opera’s bookmarks grouped together, as well as any extensions that have been installed with it.

Before

For our example we chose three very useful bookmarklets that have been previously covered here at How-To Geek: PageZipper, Printliminator, & AddThis. While you could place your bookmarklet collection into a special folder, combining your bookmarklets does present an easy to manage and customizable option.

Combining Your Bookmarklets

When you first visit the Bookmarklet Combiner website you need to make certain to expand the #2 section using the drop-down button highlighted below (expanded features shown here).

In the first section enter the name and URL for each of your favorite bookmarklets into the blanks as shown here. Notice that you can expand beyond the default three blanks provided.

The second section is where you can customize how your bookmarklet will operate. Our suggestion is to go with the Display a Menu option. There are five location choices available for the display menu: top-left corner, top-right corner, bottom-left corner, bottom-right corner, & center. Choose the location that works best for you.

All that is left to do is give your new combined bookmarklet a name. Once you have typed in a name the new bookmarklet is ready to go…you will not need to click any kind of save button. Drag the new bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar and get ready to enjoy all that extra space.

After

We decided to try our new bookmarklet out on the Microsoft Office 2010 upgrade article shown here. Clicking on our new bookmarklet displayed a nice clean looking drop-down menu.

As with the original bookmarklet, the AddThis function worked perfectly.

Next up Printliminator. Once again everything works just as nicely as before but without the toolbar clutter.

Conclusion

While this may not be for everyone it does present a very nice solution for anyone who wants to avoid using a special folder just to hold their bookmarklet collection.

Links

Create Your Own Custom Combined Bookmarklet