Export your bookmarks to a file: Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge

What the file holds, and why it is worth the detour

Every browser exports to the same old format, born at Netscape. It is an ordinary web page, readable in any browser, and every other service knows how to read it back.

It keeps the address, the title and the shape of your folders, which become folders again on arrival. Chrome and Firefox also write down the date you added each bookmark.

What it does not keep: the image of the page, an excerpt, any memory of what you had found. It is a list of addresses, and an address can go quiet without warning.

Chrome and Edge: through the bookmark manager

Both browsers share the same engine, so almost the same path. Give it thirty seconds.

1. 1In Chrome, click the three-dot More button at the top right, then Bookmarks and lists, then Bookmark Manager.
2. 2Inside the manager, click the three-dot More button again, above the list, then Export Bookmarks.
3. 3Pick a folder and save. You get an HTML file, which is the one every other service reads.
4. 4In Edge, the gesture should be the same: the three-dot Settings and more button at the top right, then Favorites, then More options above the list, then Export favorites. Microsoft documents this on its Edge learning pages rather than in a support article, so check the labels on your own screen.

The file holds your bookmarks, not your passwords and not your history. You can open it in a browser to check what is inside before sending it anywhere.

Safari on a Mac: the menu changed, and most guides are stale

Safari no longer offers Export Bookmarks. Apple replaced it with a browsing-data export, and the result is no longer an HTML file but an archive you open.

1. 1Open Safari, then the File menu, then Export Browsing Data to File.
2. 2Tick Bookmarks, untick anything you do not want, then click Download.
3. 3Name it, save it, and you get a .zip file. Double-click it: inside is the Bookmarks.html file every other service can read.

Apple's own guide documents this path for macOS Ventura and everything newer. The older File, Export, Bookmarks route now only appears in an Apple article for macOS Sierra and earlier, so treat any guide that still shows it as out of date.

Firefox, and the case of the phone

Firefox keeps the most direct path of the four, and the simplest file name.

1. 1Open the Library window. The menu route runs through the hamburger menu, then Bookmarks, then the manage-bookmarks entry at the bottom; the keyboard shortcut people use is Ctrl+Shift+O, or Cmd+Shift+O on a Mac.
2. 2Click Import and Backup in the top bar of that window, then Export Bookmarks to HTML.
3. 3Save. The file is called bookmarks.html by default.

On iPhone and iPad, exporting no longer needs a computer: Settings, Apps, Safari, then Export, below History and Website Data. Pick your data, save to Downloads, and you get a .zip holding Bookmarks.html. Apple documents this one exactly.

Chrome on a phone still cannot export. Sign in to the same Google account on a computer, let sync do its work, then export from there.

Firefox tucks each site's icon into the file, which makes it much heavier than Chrome's for the same number of bookmarks. That is normal, and harmless.

And now, what to do with it

A bookmark file sitting on a desktop is worth nothing. Three uses earn their keep, in this order.

• Keep it as a backup, somewhere outside the browser. It is free and it costs one minute a year.
• Count your lost links. Drop the file on our checking page: we knock on every address and tell you which ones no longer answer. Free, no account, and nothing is kept.
• Turn it into a library. Dropped on our import page, the same file becomes a grid of cards with the real images and titles, your original folders carried over as they were.

The second one is what surprises people. On an ordinary list, a serious share of the addresses already lead nowhere, and nobody told you.