We all know that our homes need a good deep clean (a Spring clean, if you will) from time to time. But for some reason, we often forget that our devices do, too. Not just to keep them looking nice and tidy, but to maintain their health and performance, and to make our usage of them all the more productive and efficient.
Learning how to delete multiple bookmarks in Chrome is a fundamentally important tool for keeping your bookmarks tab navigable so that you can return to any web page you need to at any time, and not be bogged down by hundreds of unwanted and unnecessary pages in the process.
To learn how to delete multiple bookmarks in Chrome, simply follow our step-by-step tutorial below. For all other information, or if you have further questions, please refer to our FAQ section at the end of this article.
Table of Contents
How to delete multiple bookmarks in Google Chrome (desktop)
- Open up Google Chrome from your computer desktop and ensure that you are signed into your Google account
- Click the three vertical dots in the top-right of the page
- From the drop-down menu, select ‘Bookmarks’, and then ‘Bookmark Manager’
- Note: you can also use the keyboard shortcut CTRL/CMD + SHIFT + O to access the Bookmark Manager
- Note: you can also use the keyboard shortcut CTRL/CMD + SHIFT + O to access the Bookmark Manager
- Once on the Bookmark Manager, you can begin deleting bookmarks.
- Delete multiple bookmarks by deleting entire unwanted folders full of bookmarks by clicking on the folder in the left-hand column, and then pressing DELETE on your keyboard (or by right-clicking the folder and selecting ‘Delete’)
- Delete multiple bookmarks by clicking on the first bookmark in the sequence of unwanted bookmarks in the main window, and then holding SHIFT on your keyboard and using the UP and DOWN arrows (also known as PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN arrows on some devices) to highlight multiple bookmarks at once. Then either hit DELETE on your keyboard, or right-click within the highlighted selection and select ‘Delete’
- Delete multiple bookmarks by deleting entire unwanted folders full of bookmarks by clicking on the folder in the left-hand column, and then pressing DELETE on your keyboard (or by right-clicking the folder and selecting ‘Delete’)
How to delete multiple bookmarks in Google Chrome (mobile)
- Open up the Google Chrome app on your smartphone or tablet mobile device, and ensure that you are signed in to your Google account
- Tap the three vertical dots in the top-right of the app
- Then, tap on ‘Bookmarks’
- You will be directed to a list of all of your bookmarks and bookmark folders synced to this particular account, to select multiple bookmarks for deletion, first tap and hold on one unwanted bookmark until it is highlighted with a blue tick/check mark.
- Next, tap on all subsequent unwanted bookmarks so as to also highlight them
- Once content with your selection, you can go ahead and delete the multiple highlighted bookmarks at the same time by tapping the trash can/bin icon in the top-right of the page
- A notification of the deletion will pop-up at the bottom of the page, you have for as long as the pop-up is visible to reverse your deletion by tapping ‘Undo’
And that’s all there is to it. Whether on PC or on your phone, you can re-organize and clean up your bookmarks folder quickly and easily by following our tutorials for deleting multiple bookmarks simultaneously.
If you have any other queries or would like more information on the subject, please see our FAQs below.
Frequently asked questions
Why would I want to delete my Chrome bookmarks?
Bookmarking web pages on Google Chrome (one of the world’s most popular internet browsers and browser apps) is a smart way of organizing yourself. Whether you’re anal about it – organizing individual pages into folders for work, leisure, holidays, and hobbies, for example – or messy – bookmarking anything even slightly interesting which crosses your path – having a host of bookmarks can help you navigate directly back to a page you’ve previously visited, even if it’s been years since last you were there.
However, your Chrome bookmarks can also get out of hand quite quickly. Even the savviest organizer out there may find that the time comes when they have too many bookmarks to easily navigate, and struggle to find the one they want for all of the useless bookmarks it’s buried beneath.
As such, you’ll want to know how to delete your bookmarks. Deleting bookmarks is just good practice since many of the pages you bookmark you’ll only need for specific occasions (like bookmarking present ideas for someone’s birthday, or bookmarking hotels for a vacation you’ve got planned). Getting rid of those bookmarks you no longer need keeps your bookmark tray nice and tidy, enabling you to browse the internet faster and more efficiently, with less hassle.
What’s the benefit of deleting multiple bookmarks at once?
Knowing how to delete individual bookmarks is one thing, but if (like us) you have hundreds upon hundreds of bookmarks, or if it’s been years since you last tidied your bookmarks up, then doing so one at a time can be unnecessarily arduous.
Learning how to delete multiple bookmarks in Chrome simultaneously makes your job easier, and the whole process faster and more streamlined.
Can I recover accidentally deleted bookmarks in Chrome?
Yes, but only for a limited period of time. Once you delete a bookmark, bookmark folder, or group of bookmarks from Chrome, you’ll see a small pop-up in the bottom-left corner of your screen. This pop-up will give you the option to ‘undo’ your deletion. Whilst the pop-up is on-screen, you can click the ‘undo’ button on it to recover the bookmark(s) you just accidentally deleted.
Of course, you can also use the ‘undo’ keyboard shortcut (CTRL/CMD + Z) to undo accidental deletions, and this can undo multiple accidental deletions in a row if you press it several times. The only note to make about this is that if you undo too much of your work, to find the one accidentally deleted bookmark, you will obviously have to then re-delete all of those bookmarks which you had intended to erase.
If I delete my bookmarks on one device, does it delete them across all devices?
Yes. Google Chrome is innovative in that it can be synced across several compatible devices. Your Google account acts universally, allowing you to access your various files, settings, emails, and bookmarks across any number of devices. When synced, you’ll find that you have access to the bookmarks you saved on one device, on another. If you delete your Chrome bookmarks on your laptop, say, then you will find that they are also deleted from the Chrome app’s bookmarks on your smartphone.
Note that bookmarks deleted from one Google account will not be deleted from other Google accounts under which they were also saved.
