You can LISTEN to my newsletter! Go to https://go.ttot.link/BookmarkMgrs and you’ll be able to listen to it. Let me know if you like this feature or not and whether I should continue it. No, that’s not me reading it.

We discussed alternatives to browser bookmark managers a while ago. I think it’s time to revisit and update that.

It might be obvious but if you use your browser’s bookmark manager, those bookmarks are only available to that browser. If you use multiple browsers, like I do, it can become difficult to remember which bookmark exists in which browser. I am also very bad at taxonomies — what we call categorization — so I need help choosing tags and categories.

The fact that bookmarks are unique to a browser has been an issue ever since the browser was created. Products were created to deal with this: Evernote and Pocket are two early examples. But, as is often the case, the products evolved into providing more function and ultimately costing more and in many cases, losing focus. They grew into much more than “just” bookmark managers.

The original problem didn’t go away though, so new products have been created to address the issue. Two that I really like are Raindrop (https://raindrop.io/) and Recall (https://www.recall.it/). I tend to use them both because I’m always afraid one will go out of business. They’re both very capable. They both will save the link to a web page, summarize the page, save a copy of the page (in case it changes later), and suggest tags for the page. They can also save notes, documents like PDFs and other things — the list varies depending on which service you choose: Raindrop documents them at https://help.raindrop.io/files and Recall documents them at https://docs.recall.it/supported-content/all-supported-content (note that neither supports Microsoft Word or Excel but Raindrop support images, videos, and audio files).

Both services have free and paid plans. Both let you save an unlimited number of bookmarks per month on their free plans. Recall gives you 10 AI-generated summaries per month on the free plan, Raindrop gives you none. But of the two, Raindrop is my preferred option mainly because its paid plan is only $28/year and gives you access to AI assistance and the full range of features. Recall’s least expensive paid plan is $10/month, if paid yearly and provides access to AI chats, summaries, and a host of other features.

I’ll be honest here, Recall has a lot of features that I never use since I’m really just looking for a basic bookmark manager. It gives you the ability to do a lot of things to bring your bookmarks to your attention and build your knowledge base. You can set reminders and quizzes plus Recall will automatically connect different bookmarks to each other for you based on their content, building a knowledge graph in real time. If you actively manage your bookmarks and use them in this way, you’re well-suited for Recall. Their documentation discusses these features as well as showing various user cases: https://docs.recall.it/. Again, their basic paid plan is $10/month, paid yearly ($120/year).

Raindrop doesn’t even provide full text search in its free plan. It, along with AI chat, web archive (where it saves the page content as it exists when you add the bookmark), as well as surfacing broken and duplicate links, is only available in the paid plan. You can see what’s included in a paid subscription at https://help.raindrop.io/premium-features. For $28/year (approximately $2.33/month) you get all the features.

Both Recall and Raindrop have a full suite of tools: browser extensions, iOS and Android apps and a web interface. If I’m in the browser and find a page I want to save, I use the browser extension which saves the link. Recall opens a sidebar and lets you edit the bookmark, add tags and so on. Raindrop opens a drop-down when you click on the extension and lets you do the same.

If I’m not using the browser or I’m on my phone or tablet, I can share the link to the app or just open the app and upload the file or add the link. Both apps let me edit the new bookmark. I can add, remove, or change any of the things the app has added for me.

When I open either of the apps or their web interface, I’m presented with a display of my bookmarks which I can reorder by date or tag or I can search the text of the bookmarked item or by one or more tags.

I’ve given you an overview of two bookmark managers that I’ve used. There are many more so if neither of these appeal to you, do a quick search for bookmark managers and see what turns up. I’m really happy with Raindrop. Don't hesitate to write to me if you have questions!

As always, I aim to help you understand the basics and equip you to search for more detailed information.

Please feel free to email me at [email protected] with questions, comments, suggestions, requests for future columns, newsletter signups, or whatever. Or just drop me a quick note and say HI!

And remember that I maintain a NotebookLM notebook of all my previous newsletters at https://go.ttot.link/TonysNotebook. Since it has access to all of my newsletters, you can ask it questions like “what are passkeys” or “what can I do to help me remember things.” You’ll need a Google account to access it and, when you visit, you’ll be given your own NotebookLM notebook.

If you like, you can read my most recent newsletter in the Hillsboro Times Gazette at https://go.ttot.link/TG-Column - I should have that link updated shortly after this edition of the newsletter appears in the online version of the newspaper.