Forum Discussion
MicrosoftIntroducing the new favorites experience in Microsoft Edge
Favorites are an integral part of any web browser, and in the months since we released the new version of Microsoft Edge we’ve heard a lot of feedback about the experience. Specifically:
- While the favorites menu provides quick access to your favorites, it isn’t always the easiest to use and more complex tasks typically require going to the edge://favorites page
- The favorites page works well for bulk management but isn’t ideal for more lightweight tasks like getting to, updating, or moving a single favorite
- Many of you also miss the Hub in the legacy version of Microsoft Edge—especially the ability to pin your favorites and other content open while you browse
Today, we’re excited to share that we’re evolving the favorites experience to address your feedback and provide a more efficient way for you to quickly access and manage your favorites without losing context of the page you’re on. These changes are currently available in the Canary and Dev channels.
The new favorites experience blends the power of the full page with the dropdown’s ease of access. Your favorites are now displayed in a classic tree view, and you can edit, organize, and even search your favorites in-line without having to go to the full page. The new favorites menu stays around while you need it and disappears when you’re done, making it easy to open or manage multiple favorites at once.
We’ve also brought the full breadth of management capabilities to the new favorites menu. In addition to the basics like reordering, renaming, and editing, you can now add new favorites and folders directly from the dropdown menu, sort, import or export your favorites, remove duplicate items, and much more. With the new favorites menu, these features are always at your fingertips.
Best of all, in response to overwhelming feedback you can now pin your favorites open in a pane along the side of the browser. This allows you to see your favorites while you browse and helps you stay more productive during those times where you need frequent access to your favorites.
For those of you who prefer a more immersive experience, we’ve got you covered. You can get back to the favorites page at any time by clicking on the favorites menu button () and selecting Manage favorites. Or simply type edge://favorites into your address bar.
We’d love to hear what you think of the new favorites experience, so please send us feedback! This is a new interaction model that we hope will save you time and keep you in the context of what you’re doing. In the coming months, you’ll see other content types adopt this model as well, including downloads, history, and more. Stay tuned!
— William Devereux, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Edge
99 Replies
Would like to see a side by side explanation of EdgeLeg features and 'where to find' in EdgeNew.
I know one of my concerns was ability to 'save to tiles' that is now in EdgeNew but did not exist when EdgeNew first came out. Perhaps need to re-ignite the idea for users to re-examine the current version of Edge and list the things that people liked about EdgeLeg that are currently in EdgeNew and show them where those things are. Am certain the Feedback Hub can provide the 'issues' and they can now be addressed with EdgeNew being more complete and with even more enhancements.
Sometimes people try something out and if the 'feature set' is not there for them at the time they move on and don't go back and try again. How to get users to give it 'another shot' ?
Are Favorites in New Edge stored the same as in EdgeLeg(acy) ? When they are moved from EdgeLeg to EdgeNew is there some conversion process.
Reason asking : There is a utility for EdgeLeg that helps organize EdgeLeg favorites but the author states it is only for favorites in EdgeLeg . So one would want to 'organize' EdgeLeg favorites 'before' moving them to EdgeNew am guessing. Explanation given was that the way EdgeNew favorites are saved is different format / structure.
- 좋아요~ 잘 사용해 볼께요 답변 감사합니다
- Are there any updates on performance improvements for the new Favourites and History? It's so painful to watch these menus open and draw and fill in even on high-end machines 😞
- William DevereuxWe've been making a bunch of changes behind the scenes. You should already be seeing some of the first improvements in Canary and Dev, and they'll be making their way to Stable soon.
I was gutted to see that you can no longer have two blank folders with the same name e.g. " ", I don't need my folders to have names on the bookmarks bar, keeping them nameless saves room. Which now means every folder needs a name else they merge. I'm not sure when this was changed, but a step back, there should be a flag page for all the favourites options, so the user can have a choice! I've fed already. Just wanted to comment here too.
I like the new favorite experience. We used Group Policy preferences to create IE favorites. We enabled the "import favorites" option when we migrated our customers to Edge (87.0.664.57). We also Created Managed favorites for Edge. Now we have duplicates. Any idea on programmatically removing the imported duplicates?
- William DevereuxHi Andrew! I have you tried using the "Remove duplicate favorites" option in the Favorites menu?
William Devereux Thanks for the reply. I have tried the option to "Remove duplicate favorites". Duplicates I have added are removed. The imported favorites remain. I opened a support request yesterday - 121010522000708.
Thanks,
Andrew
I'm still using the BETA version so I don't have it. 😞
pjmanroe wrote:I'm still using the BETA version so I don't have it. 😞
Hi,
it's still a controlled feature rollout
William Devereux I really like the new Edge Browser and even the new favorites, but I do hope you can fix the speed it takes for the favorites to populate (which is about 3 seconds every time I click the favorites button).
My comments probably don't matter to a company as big as Microsoft or the Team that takes care of the Edge Browse. But as soon as this is sent, I will be switching to Firefox or Chrome.
I will be checking the Edge Browser every couple of weeks to see if the problem is fixed because at some point I really would like to come back to the Edge Browser.
(By the way this happens on a slow computer and a very fast gaming computer with all updates installed)
Thanks
On-the-fly config options? Yes!
Pin to side? Yes!
Tree view? Yes!
Search? Yes!
BUT
Click to expand folder? No! Hover-to-expand, please. This is the way the preceding version of Favorites worked, and it saved clicks.
Click to collapse folder? No! Auto-collapse, please. Or, auto-collapse on exit. This, too, is the way the preceding version worked, and it, too, saved clicks.
Without auto-collapse, expanded folders remain expanded. This requires a tedious amount of constant click-around cleanup to collapse the folders so they remain navigable. If you neglect this chore, pretty soon you wind up with a Favorites window with all folders completely expanded 100% of the time. At that point, there's no reason for the tree view in the first place. You might as well just list all the favorites in one long, scrollable text list, separated by headings.
Worse, collapsing a folder requires a return visit to the Favorites tool. Why? Because the instant you select a favorite, the tool disappears. This much is fine, but because the folder does not collapse, you must open the Favorites tool again, find the expanded folder, then click it to collapse it before you can get on with your work.
I should say: Everything I've just said about these flaws applies only to the Favorites extension, i.e. the button sitting either on the toolbar, or in the Settings menu, depending on your preference. I experience none of these flaws, and in fact Favorites performs just the way I describe it should, if I use the Favorites bar. But here's the thing about the Favorites bar:
I don't want to use it. I don't like favorites/bookmarks bars in any browser. They gobble real estate. The clutter things up. And in Edge, that clutter is amplified by the gawdawful manila folder icons that are straight out of the 1993 Information Superhighway Catalog. My preference for dark mode only serves to accentuate their sickly luminescence. If I must have folder icons, at least give me the option to set the color.
KEEP THE FAVORITES EXTENSION BEAUTIFUL: COLLAPSE THE FOLDERS AUTOMATICALLY.
William Devereux Great expérience with the favorites. Love the option menu within it. I have a question though. Why favorites in the regular edge app is such faster than on edge dev?
They took a menu of what is essentially a list of text items, and managed to give it a loading time? In 2020? That's almost impressive, in a way.
The new menu's dimensions are locked now, to a size too small to show all of my favorites/folders at once. I have to scroll to see some folders, and because of the tree system, I have to scroll down some more once I've opened the folder. This update has added steps to one of the most common tasks in a browser.
The pinned sidebar mode and the ability to manage favorites on the fly are pretty nice additions, but yeah this needs work. Navigating favorites is slower right now, not faster. 😕
