Where did Chrome enhanced bookmark manager disappear?

As opposed to some people I really liked the new Chrome "Stars" bookmark manager. I had it on all my Chrome installations and it was working great... (I didn't install it as an extension - it was added in one of my Chrome updates).

However, at some update later it seems that the new bookmark manager disappeared and the old, ugly, boring bookmark manager came back... :/

I looked everywhere how to enable it back, but I could only find posts about how to disable it... I checked everything in chrome://flags that seemed to be related, but nothing worked... (naturally the first one I did was switch "Enable Enhanced Bookmarks" to "Enabled" - it did nothing).

Then I thought I might install it from Chrome Web Store, but it seems that Google removed it from there...

The weird thing is that I couldn't find any mention of this anywhere - not in Chrome discussion groups, Chromium blogs, not even here in StackExchange...

Anyone knows what happened to it?

Did Google decide to withdraw it because of the criticism it got?

Anyone has an idea how to enable it?

traveh

Posted 2015-04-05T07:39:03.523

Reputation: 554

1Funny thing, I am on stable and mine went missing too. – Camilo Martin – 2015-06-12T18:55:55.343

Same thing happened to me also now on stable... weirdest thing is that on one machine it happened and on another it didn't... – traveh – 2015-06-12T23:04:08.990

You were on dev 43.x when it first happened, right? Then you went back to 41.x stable, and now stable is 43.x. Strange. Maybe extensions affect this? The ones I have (active) are AdBlock, Google Docs, Imagus, Jot, LastPass and TamperMonkey. – Camilo Martin – 2015-06-14T10:15:20.037

Maybe... though they're not supposed to. Another curious fact, I have 2 machines at home, one is 32-bit and the second is 64-bit. Same Chrome version, same account, same extensions, etc... Sometime last week, the 64-bit machine seems to have reverted to the old bookmarks manager, while the 32-bit machine kept the enhanced bookmarks manager... :S – traveh – 2015-06-14T11:01:39.693

And a 2nd curious fact is that on my computer at work (which is 64-bit btw), I have 2 Chrome users, my work Chrome user seems to have reverted to the old bookmarks manager, while my personal Chrome user still has the enhanced one... Same machine, same Chrome installation, different extensions... I have no idea what's going on... – traveh – 2015-06-14T11:40:47.520

Could you please tell me your active extensions too? I know it shouldn't matter, but extensions can change e.g., the new tab page (Jot does) and maybe, just maybe, they're triggering something. – Camilo Martin – 2015-06-16T17:24:29.090

Oh, and btw my Chrome is 32-bits on Win7 x64 (I think it just carried over from the time when it was all 32-bits). – Camilo Martin – 2015-06-16T17:30:56.277

Answers

Apparently Google finally decided to revert to the old bookmarks manager - see here.

You can now get the enhanced bookmark manager as an extension from here.

traveh

Posted 2015-04-05T07:39:03.523

Reputation: 554

Why was this downvoted? – Eric Walker – 2015-07-10T22:28:56.253

If you are referring to the score being lower than other answers, it's because I just added and accepted it a week ago (since the correct answer changed). Otherwise I'm not sure what you mean (did it have a higher score before?) – traveh – 2015-07-11T08:00:03.943

@traveh - Does that Extension even work now? It doesnt show me all of its features. or I dont know how to pull it – Alex S – 2015-08-21T12:47:58.610

@AlexS it does. What do you mean that it doesn't show you all it's features? – traveh – 2015-08-23T09:22:37.760

As far as I remember, Google has been regularly deleted this extension from Chrome Webstore.

I'm using it right now - I never delete extensions, only disable them and if I check details it gives me this link - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gmlllbghnfkpflemihljekbapjopfjik

Keep in mind, that Bookmark manager is still in development phase.

Edit: If you really want it, I can make a copy of extension.

Kailo

Posted 2015-04-05T07:39:03.523

Reputation: 201

I already tried that link. It gives "An error occurred: Item not found. This item may have been removed by its author.". I would like to understand why Google would distribute it to my Chrome (I mean as part of the program, not as an extension) and then suddenly remove it without a word. It just doesn't make sense... – traveh – 2015-04-08T18:36:25.103

Nice, works perfectly, i didn't know that tere was an extension for it too. To clarify for others what i was wondering about: This is exactly the new bookmark manager that was added automatically to chrome a while back and that then disappeared (at least for me) after the last update. – Larzan – 2015-06-10T10:26:32.810

I used system restore of Windows 8.1 to restore my computer to 2 days ago and since then the new bookmark manager has disappeared so we have to install it manually. Google doesn't even ask or warn its users about removing a widely used feature. another reason for us to use Firefox more regularly. – None – 2015-06-17T14:16:25.797

I found the problem and the solution (at least for my specific case).

I believe Google (accidentally?) disabled the enhanced bookmark manager (regardless of the chrome://flag setting) in the Chrome dev channel, which is the one I've been using (version 43.x).

I uninstalled Chrome and installed Chrome stable channel (the default), so I'm back to version 41.0.2272.118 now, and the enhanced bookmark manager is back, hurray!!!

Instructions on how to switch Chrome channels at: https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel

Note: it's was not enough to install the stable channel over the existing dev channel installation, since it does not downgrade the version - I had to uninstall first and then install again.

traveh

Posted 2015-04-05T07:39:03.523

Reputation: 554

1This is definitely the correct answer thank you . – rwatts – 2015-06-01T16:48:51.737

I had same trouble few days ago but when I relaunched the chrome,new bookmark manager redisplayed on my chrome.It seems that new bookmark manager needed more authority so it automatically disabled.

月之天使

Posted 2015-04-05T07:39:03.523

Reputation: 11