Forum Discussion
Two way bookmark sync between Google Chrome and Chromium Edge?
- Apr 10, 2020
Hi Everyone, it is interesting to see this discussion. We have posted some questions on this topic here - https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/ongoing-sync-between-microsoft-edge-and-chrome-discussion/m-p/1297563
Please take a moment and share your response on the thread linked above.
cc. Keith Davis
Deleted
BryantB there is no official support for sync bookmarks between two browsers but you can do the trick because both browser uses almost same file format for bookmark.
Step 1: you need to create a "copy_bookmark.bat" script file with this code
xcopy "C:\Users\YOUR_USER\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks" "C:\Users\YOUR_USER\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\Bookmarks" /Y
*use your pc user name instead of "YOUR_USER"
this will copy chrome bookmark file to Microsoft edge location
Step 2: Now open "Task Scheduler" and create new task and setup trigger to "Daily" every 15 minutes and set "Action" to start a program and choose this (copy_bookmark.bat) file
Now this will copy all your chrome bookmarks to Microsoft edge on every 15 mins.
The only issue is that you have to restart the edge to view new bookmarks, but in future maybe we will find solution for that 🙂
- vignesh1501Sep 17, 2021Copper Contributor
Raheel605 Instead create a symlink for bookmarks and bookmark.bak file so that both browsers access the same file.
- AlyGreenMay 26, 2023Copper Contributor
vignesh1501Thanks for this suggestion.
On testing I found creating a symlink works but only in one direction. So you need to pick which web browser is your primary one where you create and delete favorites / bookmarks. The secondary browser will correctly pickup all changes from the primary but not save and delete new or existing bookmarks.
(Maybe I setup the symlinks wrong if you got it working bi-directionally?)
For myself, I chose Chrome as the primary browser and Edge as the secondary browser. Before creating the symlink, you need to delete the Edge versions of...
bookmarks
bookmarks.bak
bookmarks.msbak files
...so the new symlink can have these names and not throw a" file already exists" error message.
Delete these files (if Edge is secondary chosen browser):
"C:\Users\UserProfile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\Bookmarks"
"C:\Users\UserProfile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\Bookmarks.bak"
"C:\Users\UserProfile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\Bookmarks.msbak"
Create symlinks (replacing "UserProfile" in path with the correct name):
mklink "C:\Users\UserProfile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\Bookmarks" "C:\Users\UserProfile\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks"
mklink "C:\Users\UserProfile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\Bookmarks.bak" "C:\Users\UserProfile\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks.bak"
mklink "C:\Users\UserProfile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\Bookmarks.msbak" "C:\Users\UserProfile\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks.bak"
There was no equivalent Bookmarks.msbak for Chrome so I just mapped both .bak & .msbak to the Chrome version of Bookmarks.bak. You can just leave .msbak alone and let it create its regular backup file is another option.
Anyway adding or deleting Bookmarks in Chrome mirrors correctly in Edge (after opening and closing Edge to force it to read the Bookmarks file). The Favorites in Edge do not update until the browser is opened and closed.
Adding or deleting Favorites in Edge does not mirror correcly in Chrome. So I am not sure sure why exactly this is other than there must be a data storage mismatch going on or somehow the write permissions are not allowed?
Once you close Edge and reopen it, those Favorite changes made revert back to those in Chrome. In conclusion if you don't need bi-directional synchronizing (which I don't) this solution works for a chosen primary browser.
Aly - Elvis_9999Sep 21, 2021Copper ContributorHow did you get it to look at the same file?
- vignesh1501Sep 23, 2021Copper Contributor
Elvis_9999See this video to understand.
https://youtu.be/RDH5IuyPJtk
Let me know if you still can't get it after seeing the video
- Manu99Jan 22, 2020Copper Contributor
Raheel605 one could also use a symlink or even an hard link. That way both edge and chrome are synced automatically, and one could also do this for extension folders. In any case this could damage something because edge and chrome could take two different ways in future. Beside that, you must have edge and chrome installed at the same time anyway. I would like to not do this. I would like to use chrome on Android and edge chromium on windows for example, without have to keep both installed to sync fav, pages, chronology, etc. But Microsoft removed from chromium the google syncing, and this regrets me on using edge. I would like to mix environments: Android+Chrome on mobile and Windows+Edge on desktop. But actually this is nearly impossible if you want keep things synced. Best option for now is to symlink the bookmarks file keeping chrome and edge installed on desktop. But i don't like to do so. I hope Microsoft could bring to us Google Sync
- p37307Jan 22, 2020Copper Contributor
Agree with syncing of Edge on Android. I did read where that may be fixed. I too use Edge on desktop and Chrome on Android.
Since I use Edge on Desktop more than Chrome on Android, Edge to Chrome was the way to go.
I previously tried copying Edge Bookmarks to Chrome on Desktop but what ended up happening is the file on Chrome doubled in size and nothing from Edge Bookmarks would show. It's like it synced Google's bookmarks and ignored Chrome. I shut down all instances of Chrome in the task manger and repeated.
I tried to symlink Edge's Bookmarks to Chrome Bookmarks and it wrote the file but it never would show the differences.
- asecret900Jan 17, 2020Copper Contributor
Thanks for the tip I got this .bat to work between Chrome & EdgeBeta with the following path tweaks (as at Jan20 anyway):
xcopy "C:\Users\YOUR_USER\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks" "C:\Users\YOUR_USER\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge Beta\User Data\Default\Bookmarks" /Y
Rated!
- Miguel IsidoroJan 19, 2020Brass Contributor
asecret900 What about extensions? The great thing would be to have Edge and Chrome syncing extensions besides the bookmarks. Any ideias on how this could be achieved?
Edge uses MS account, Chrome uses Google account...
- darrynbrookingJan 20, 2020Copper Contributor
@Raheel605's solution is only one way, from Chrome to Edge but if you're going to go that way, copy the Favicons file too.
Miguel Isidoro I keep a bookmark folder with links to the extension pages. But then I also use a slightly different set of extensions for each browser.