Arc Browser | Pinned Tabs vs. Bookmarks

Adena is here to explain how Pinned Tabs in Arc differ from the Bookmarks you're used to in your ex-browser.

0:00 - Intro
0:15 - How Chrome does bookmarks
0:53 - Pinned tabs in Arc
2:00 - Saving tabs for later
2:50 - Resetting Pinned tabs
4:08 - Ask us questions!

[mizatt]

Tbh I feel like the lack of traditional bookmarks in Arc is a huge feature gap that I'm having trouble adjusting to. Pinned tabs are great, but they're not an adequate substitute for traditional bookmarks and importing my old bookmarks as a pinned folder causes a usability nightmare where everything gets pushed down every time I open one of them and the folder expands.

Pinned tabs are very useful, but I (and I suspect most people) use bookmarks as basically aliases for sites we might want to visit occasionally or at some point in the future, not necessarily every day, and I don't need them there in my face all the time --- particularly, I don't need them above tabs that I'm actively using. I agree with what someone said below ... this is sort of a solution in search of a problem, and the new features Arc introduces haven't adequately negated the need for bookmarks

[dobz]

Since switching to exclusively using Arc (and loving it) the lack of traditional bookmarks has been my only problem. There are only a few sites I need a static URL saved for, but they are critical to my workflow. I think the best implementation would be to provide a toggle between a pinned tab and a bookmark. Please try to prioritize fixing this! Thanks for everything else!

[dalexplym]

Another vote here for a functional bookmark implementation. Yes, most of us could benefit from less cyber-debris, HOWEVER... there are times when I really want access to a scientific paper I saw six months ago, or need to find that nursery that had a particular kind of tree -- from two or three years ago. While you can try your luck with an Internet search, it is often faster to go into your bookmarks to locate something that you KNOW is there, and can be localized as higher or lower in the list, based on chronology of related entries. The goal is to provide the information we need, WHEN we need it -- and bookmarks are an important part of that process. Tuck them out of the way if you wish, but any effective web browser must make them available and convenient (self-standing bookmark apps notwithstanding).

[Naaackers]

This has been the most difficult thing to adjust to since switching to Arc. I don't want to say Arc's implementation is wrong because I like trying new things, but it doesn't fit for me. It doesn't seem intuitive to have the tabs you're browsing be pushed down the more bookmarks you have. I was intrigued by the fact that bookmarks were dynamic and could be navigated, but in practice it just didn't work out for me.

I love swiping through spaces with gestures on my trackpad, and think that a space for bookmarks would be perfect for me. By default, clicked bookmarks could be opened into your 'main space', but if you wanted to open it else where you could right click>open to>space _.

I love everything else that Arc has tried to break from the norm on, but bookmarks is really built into the core infrastructure of web browsing and this seems like it adds a lot of complexity to something that should be really simple.

Thank you for the app so far <3

[ChrisMessina]

Would be great if the pinned tab's favicon switched to a "reset" icon on hover!

[heminthehat]

I agree with many of the sentiments here. Bookmarks are a very important feature that the faves and pinned tabs cannot replace. I love arc and everytime I switch I keep coming back. My workaround for this has been to use my streamdeck to house my bookmarks. Definitely, not a solution for the browser itself, but has worked for me until we see a different/better implementation.

[zakkforchilli]

Yeah I agree with the majority. I think simply having the ability to hit CMD L or CMD T to bring up the handy box and just search for my saved bookmarks would be just perfect. Plus many are wondering, the bookmarks folder that got imported, are all those tabs going to remain open now? Need to know how ARC manages sleeping tabs and such. That's HUGE. It's the reason for the existence of browsers like Vivaldi, and Firefox plugins such as Sidebery, making use of Chromiums tab unloading. // Also, when a bookmark opens and you close it, there is no visual feedback if I'm in a different tab. Like do I have 100 tabs open over there or not? No idea.

[emlezdev]

Something I learned today it's that there's an option within the Shortcuts settings, that allows you to create a shortcut for expanding and collapsing all folders you might have!

I didn't see an option for this on the Command Bar, but surely is in the Shortcuts settings :D

[Sodium]

I have over 6000 bookmarks in Chrome, can Arc Browser help me, or do I need Jesus?

[charan]

But I don't want all those pinned tabs to be live tabs. Most of those tabs I visit very rarely but I still want to save them. So a bookmark option would be better in these usecases

[First.Last.]

you are by far the best explainer here for arc, thank you

[ricsilvavideos]

I was completely lost with this new concepts.. this video saved me!!! Thanks!

[Nil-jsbf]

Was really excited by the easel feature so I signed up but the lack of bookmark support is likely going to be a deal breaker for me. I'm guessing traditional bookmarks goes against your mantra of avoiding tab hell since it typically accumulates old sites that will never be read. But removing it makes managing sites that you do visit semi regularly painful since this list can get pretty long and trying to find it in the limited vertical space is not a pleasant UI experience.

Edit: Found a trick where you can pin arc://bookmarks to make it easier to navigate to a bookmark. I have no idea how to actually save new bookmarks in nested folders though.

[tomazwang]

Some "bookmarks" are site that I want to remember but not visit everyday. My pinned tabs goes very long and I usually don't know which tab is activated and which are not. Is there any way I can store sites by more traditional bookmark way rather than pin them?

[BotondKuti]

There is nothing wrong with bookmarks, pinned tabs and bookmarks just have different purposes. Bookmarks are just buttons to quickly open a page in a tab without the button becoming the tab. That is a feature. It even fits Arc's goal of trying to reduce tabs. I've been using Arc as my main personal browser for a long time and now I can use the Windows version on my work laptop too. I miss bookmarks the most for work and the ironic thing is that Arc intends to make money from companies adopting it, right? find myself going back and forth between Edge and Arc because of this ... I know bookmarks are not fully removed from Arc, but the function of bookmark as button isn't there. Please add it back, just like normal browsers have it. There is no innovation in removing it.

[mauricarreno]

Been loving the browser but not switched completely. All pinned tabs inside folder are always active? Im thinking of the ram they can use if you have a lot, same as tabs in Chrome.
I saw you are working on a Bookmarks feature so looking forward on that too!

[geirasES]

Had to open Chrome again because the company where I work uses cookies that are activated via the Bookmark bar. There's no way to use something similar on Arc.

Anyway, keep it going. I'm loving Arc browser, so far.

[YuriOxeVei]

Please add the traditional bookmark feature. Everything else is just great, but the lack of bookmarks is not even a feature, it's a flaw, and I don't wanna "adjust" to that. Bookmarks should be universal across all spaces, otherwise it loses it's purpose. I'm sure most people agree on this.

[jordynelizabeth]

Pinned tabs are great but I really think we need something like bookmarks for tabs/ websites we don’t need active but will want to revisit in the future many times across differ workspaces depending on the projects we are working on

[drpepa]

How about having option to make imported Bookmarks into folders with preview image.. chrome browser bookmarks once upon a time did that.
Basically a tab view and another option for Folder view👍