Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome are two of the most popular browsers in the world, and they are both excellent. However, the bookmark functions for both of them are known to be a bit of a hassle sometimes.
For example, bookmarks sometimes duplicate for no apparent reason. That begs the question, how do you stop Chrome and Edge from duplicating bookmarks?
The most probable cause is that your browser has a problem with syncing. To fix this, you need to turn off the syncing function and turn it back on again. Do this by clicking on your profile at the top-right corner and unchecking sync. After this, restart your Chrome or Edge browser and see if your bookmarks are still duplicated. If it’s fixed, try turning on sync again and see if your issue is resolved.
This is but one solution to this bookmark issue, however. Read more to explore alternative solutions for both Edge and Chrome.
How To Stop Chrome and Edge From Duplicating Bookmarks
Let’s thoroughly go over all the different solutions to the bookmark issue in Edge and Chrome. After you’ve read this you can hopefully use bookmarks in a normal way again.
1. Turn Off Sync In Your Browser
As I mentioned before, browser sync is the most likely reason that bookmarks are duplicating, and the solution to this is to simply turn your sync off. So, how do you do this? It’s simple.
To turn off sync for Chrome, follow the steps below.
- Click your profile at the top-right of your screen
- If your sync is set to On, turn it on simply by clicking Turn off
To turn off sync for Edge, follow the steps below.
- Click the three dots at the top-right of the browser or press Alt + F
- Click on Settings
- Click Profiles
- In the list, select Sync
- Click Turn off sync
2. Reset your browser
Resetting the “factory” settings on your browser can also be a good way to stop bookmarks from duplicating. It’s basically like re-installing your browser, as it clears it of stored data and so forth.
To reset your browser on Chrome, follow the steps below.
- Open a new tab in Chrome
- Copy and paste
chrome://settings/resetinto the address bar
- In this menu, select Reset settings to their original defaults to reset Chrome
To reset your browser on Edge, follow the steps below.
- Click the three dots at the top-right of the browser or press Alt + F
- Click on Settings
- On the menu on the left-hand side, look for Reset settings and click it
- Lastly, click Restore settings to their default values
4. Disable Sync In Windows Settings
If desyncing your browser did not help, you can try to turn off syncing in Windows itself. A lot of Windows settings, this one included, are concepts that continually get improved as time goes on but aren’t necessarily optimized yet, and syncing in Windows is one of these settings.
To turn sync off in Windows, follow the steps below.
- Go into settings by pressing the Windows button + I
- In this new menu, click Accounts
- Click on Sync your settings
- Uncheck Sync settings from On to Off
5. Install A Cleanup Extension
If none of the solutions provided above has done the trick for you yet, then you can try to install an extension to deal with it. I can recommend this extension for Chrome, it’s super useful and it should fix your issue.
When you have installed the extension, go into it by clicking its icon in the top-right corner of your browser, and find a button called “find duplicated bookmarks”. Click this and let the extension do the legwork.
This extension is unfortunately not available for Edge, but who knows for the future. There are a bunch of extensions for bookmark cleanup available for Edge if you want to give them a go, but I can’t vouch for them personally.
To browse extensions for Edge, go here and browse away. You can use the search bar on the left-hand side of the screen to enter whatever searches you want.
6. Clear Browsing Data
On some rare occasions, your cached data will be the culprit. That’s why it might be a good idea to clean this up from time to time. Also, clearing your browser cache can be good for other reasons such as speeding your browser up.
You can easily clear your cache by pressing Shift + Delete + Ctrl. After this, choose a preferred range of time to clear and click on Clear data.
I’d strongly recommend saving your passwords and thing such as that before you do this. Another alternative is to uncheck the password alternative before you click on Clear data.
Why Are My Bookmarks Duplicating?
As we have gone through here in this article, the reasons for your bookmarks duplicating can be many. However, the most common reasons are that the sync function in your browser is messing up.
If you have a bad extension, this can also cause all sorts of bugs and errors in your browser. As a rule of thumb, only download extensions that are used by a lot of people.
You can also try and switch browsers, as the reason for bookmark duplication oftentimes seems to be browser-specific.
Do Too Many Bookmarks Slow Down A Computer?
There’s a clear answer to this question: no, if your bookmarks work as they should, they shouldn’t be slowing down your computer or browser.
Alone they won’t affect the performance of your computer particularly much, but if there is an existing error that makes your browser duplicate your bookmarks a hundred-fold, then yes, there’s a possibility that your computer’s performance will suffer.
That’s one of the reasons why you don’t want to have a bunch of useless duplicates lying around in your browser, and why I highly recommend that you make use of the tips given above to rid yourself of this annoying issue!