Cannot add Bookmarks in Chrome on Windows PC

If you cannot add Bookmarks in Chrome on your Windows PC, then this post offers guidance on what you can do to resolve the issue and successfully create or edit Chrome bookmarks.

How to add bookmarks in Chrome?

To add a bookmark in Chrome on your Windows PC, you can enter the webpage URL you want to bookmark in the address bar. Once the page is opened, click on the Star icon next to the web address bar. Alternatively, you open the target web page, press the Ctrl+D hotkey, and then press the Done button.

However, some users can’t add, view, or edit bookmarks in their Chrome browser. Now, this issue could be caused due to various reasons like rogue browser extensions, a corrupted cache, a damaged user profile, corrupted preferences and customization data, or a faulty installation of Chrome.

Before we proceed with solutions, we recommend checking the selected folder to add a bookmark. Some users had selected the Mobile bookmarks folder while adding their bookmarks. Hence, they could not view their newly added bookmarks on the bar on their computer. Hence, if that is the case, click on the Star button to add a bookmark, and then under the Folder option, choose the Bookmarks bar folder. Also, if the bookmarks bar is full, click on the arrow button to access new bookmarks.

Cannot add Bookmarks in Chrome on Windows PC

If you can’t add, view, or edit bookmarks or the Bookmark Manager is not working properly in your Chrome browser on your Windows PC, you can follow these fixes to resolve the issue:

1. Update Chrome browser.
2. Restart your computer.
3. Enable the Bookmarks bar.
4. Rename the Bookmarks file
5. Delete your old bookmarks and try re-adding them.
6. Disable your extensions and remove the problematic extensions.
7. Ensure that Chrome bookmarks sync is enabled.
8. Delete Chrome browser cache.
9. Make a new user profile in Chrome.
10. Reset or Uninstall & Reinstall Chrome.

1] Update your Chrome browser

To update Chrome, open the browser, click on the three-dot menu button and click on the Help > About Google Chrome option. It will then start checking for available updates, and if there are any updates available, it will download them. Once done, relaunch the browser to install the new updates and then see if the problem is fixed or not.

2] Restart your computer

Sometimes it could be a temporary glitch or issue that should be fixed with a simple restart. Hence, you should first restart your PC and then launch Chrome and try bookmarking pages or opening Bookmark Manager.

Related: Chrome bookmarks disappeared or not showing up

3] Enable the Bookmarks bar

Check if you have enabled our bookmarks or not. You might have hidden the bookmark bar in Chrome which is why you can’t view your bookmarks, and assuming that you can’t add a bookmark. To do that, here are the steps to follow:

• First, open Chrome and click on the three-dot menu button.
• Now, select the Settings option from the appeared option and go to the Appearance tab in the left pane.
• After that, enable the toggle associated with the Show bookmarks bar option.

4] Rename the Bookmarks file

This issue could be due to the corrupted Bookmarks file. So, in that case, you can try renaming the Bookmarks file stored on your computer and then see if the problem is fixed. Here’s how you can do that:

• Make sure Chrome is not running in the background.
• Next, press Win+R to open the Run command box and enter AppData in the open box.
• In the opened location, go to the Local folder and then open the Google > Chrome > User Data folder.
• After that, move to the user profile folder and locate the Bookmarks and Bookmarks.bak files, and create a backup of these files to be on the safer side.
• Now, rename the Bookmarks file to Bookmarks.old and Bookmarks.bak to Bookmarks.
• Once done, restart Chrome and try creating bookmarks to see if the problem is resolved.

If the problem persists, move on to the next fix.

See: How to restore the missing Chrome Top Toolbar?

5] Delete your old bookmarks and try re-adding them

You can also try deleting the existing bookmarks from Chrome, restarting your browser, and then re-adding new bookmarks. This is a workaround and might help you bookmark issues in Chrome.

Related: Google Chrome sync not working

6] Disable your extensions and remove the problematic extensions

The next thing you can do is disable your extensions in Google Chrome. Certain suspicious pr rogue extensions can interfere with the normal working of your browser and can cause bookmarking issues.

• Open the Google Chrome browser, enter chrome://extensions in the address bar and hit Enter key.
• On the Extensions page, disable all extensions by switching the associated toggle.
• Now, check if you can bookmark pages now and if Bookmark Manager is working fine or not.

If bookmarks are working fine after disabling extensions in Chrome, you can be sure that the main culprit is one or more extensions. You can now start enabling your extension one by one and then analyze which is causing the issue.

Once you find out the problematic extension, you can use the Remove button to uninstall the extension permanently.

Read: Chrome JavaScript not working, refreshing, or loading.

7] Ensure that Chrome bookmarks sync is enabled

If your problem is that Chrome bookmarks are not being saved to the cloud then this may apply to you. Bookmarks might not be saving if you have disabled bookmark syncing in Chrome. Hence, enable bookmark sync as follows:

• Open Chrome, press the three-dot menu button and choose the Settings option from the appeared menu.
• Now, click on the Sync and Google services option and then tap on the Manage what you sync option.
• After that, you can choose the Sync everything option to synchronize all content.
• However, if you want to synchronize only selective items, click on the Customize sync option and enable the Bookmarks toggle.
• Once done, check if you are able to save Chrome bookmarks or not.

8] Delete Chrome browser cache

You might be dealing with bookmark issues in Chrome due to a corrupted cache stored. Clear up the browser cache, and see if the problem is fixed.

• Open Chrome and click on the three-dot menu option.
• Now, click on the More tools option and tap on the Clear browsing data option.
• If you want to quickly clear the browsing data option, hit the Ctrl+Shift+Del shortcut key.
• Next, set the Time range to All time in the newly opened dialog box.
• Now select the Cached images and files checkbox and other data checkbox you want to delete.
• Click on the Clear data button, and cached data will be deleted from your browser.
• Once done, you can reopen your Chrome browser and check if the problem is fixed.

Read: How to create a Bookmark to restart Chrome, Edge, or Opera?

9] Make a new user profile in Chrome

If you can still not add bookmarks in Chrome, the problem might be with your current user profile. User profiles usually get corrupted and cause such problems in a browser. Hence, in that case, you can create a new fresh user profile and then check if the problem is gone.

• To do that, open Chrome and click on the user profile icon present at the top-right corner.
• Now, click on the Add button and then press the Sign in button to log in with another Google account. Or, you can also click on the Continue without an account button to continue without one.
• After that, add a name, pick a theme color, choose a profile picture, and fill in other details.
• Finally, press the Done button to create a new user profile.
• You can now start adding and managing your bookmarks in Chrome and see if the problem is resolved or not.

Read: How to prevent Bookmark Editing in Chrome?

10] Reset or Uninstall & Reinstall Chrome

The next fix you can apply is resetting your Google Chrome browser. There might be some corruption in the browser which can only be fixed by resetting Chrome. Resetting will restore the original state of Chrome without any customizations. After resetting Chrome to its original state, you should be able to create new bookmarks. However, if you still can’t, we have one more fix that should work for you. So, move on to the next solution.

If this, too, does not help then the last resort would be to completely uninstall it and then download and install its latest version.

What is the shortcut key for saving bookmarks in Chrome?

To save a bookmark in Chrome, you can use the Ctrl+D shortcut key. If you want to save all the opened tabs as bookmarks in a new folder, you can press the Ctrl+Shift+D hotkey. If you wish to open your Bookmark Manager, you can quickly hit the Ctrl+Shift+O key combinations. To view or hide the Bookmarks bar, press Ctrl+Shift+B.