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The search box in the bookmarks bar only searches the bookmarks themselves, yet I have arranged the bookmarks into folders and subfolders. Sometimes I can't see the folder that I know I have, so I would like to do a search for it. Even if I find a bookmark that I have, onces it comes up as a result of a bookmark search, there's no way of finding out what folder it is contained within so I can get the other bookmarks - I'd like a similar function to Open Containing Folder.

I've had a look for an add-on to do this but the problem is the terms bookmark, folder and organise are too general.

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For everyone's information I have noticed this as well. You can search for a string pattern in your bookmarks using the bookmarks organization menu ( used to show up as 'Organize Bookmarks' and is now reachable as 'Show all Bookmarks' both under the 'Bookmarks' menu item ).

This built in Firefox feature allows you to search for and find a link based on the occurance of the search string within the 'Name' field and/or 'Location/URL' field of a bookmark.

BUT if you happen to have organized your many hundred bookmarks in a treelike hierarchy of folders, the built in search feature it DOES NOT show you in which of the 'Bookmark' folders the link has been saved.

For finding a bookmark and navigating to it the feature is useful.

BUT if one's intention is to find out under which bookmark folder a given bookmark was saved the feature is useless. This maybe an oversight by Mozilla or it may be intentional.

I have even upgraded to the ESR release ( 10.0.3 ) and ( as of 22.04.2012 ) could not find a built-in feature that indicates a bookmark's location within one's bookmarks hierarchy.

What I can recommend is to use an add-on. For example

Sidebar Bookmarks Search Plus 1.9

seems to do the trick. After installation you must select for the bookmarks to show in the 'sidebar' window ( CTRL-B or 'View -> Sidebar -> Bookmarks' ). You can then enter a search string and click on any matching results that will be displayed in the upper pane of the side-bar. The bookmark's location is highlighted in the folder view at the bottom of the side-bar.

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  • I'll accept this as correct. On my machine, now running Firefox 11.0 on XP, the addon is a solution. Some slight drawbacks are: clicking on the bookmark in the top pane browses to it as well as highlighting the folder in the bottom pane; and the folder highlight doesn't have focus so is very light grey unless I click on the scrollbar. Might just be my colour settings.
    – Martin
    Commented Apr 23, 2012 at 7:43
  • SO/SE has a real problem in that this information is not organized, especially when searching. This answer appears at the top even though it's outdated. In the current Firefox bookmark manager you can right-click the bookmark then click "Show in folder".
    – CR.
    Commented Oct 17, 2023 at 13:43
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I just found Bookmark search plus 2. It will select the bookmark in the hiearchy after searching.

bookmark plugin example search

In 2018 the previously suggested plug-ins no longer exist.

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  • I too find "bookmarks search plus 2" a very helpful, neat, powerful yet easy-to-use extension.
    – lidqy
    Commented Sep 27, 2023 at 16:12
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With the advent of Firefox Quantum (v57+), which uses the new Web Extensions API, most of the previously suggested plugins no longer work. However this one - the Bookmarks Manager and Viewer - does appear to work so it is possible to both search for folder names and see the folder location of a particular bookmark.

Also there's a long standing bug report/feature request for Firefox to add enclosing/parent folder name to bookmark search.

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I've been missing that feature as well. These two addons, if used together, help a lot - still they don't solve the problem of not being able to search for folder names.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/show-parent-folder/

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/go-parent-folder/

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  • 4
    Unfortunately now both addons are gone (and they didn't support e10s).
    – Marki555
    Commented Jun 26, 2017 at 15:02
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I also have the same longstanding problem. When the bookmarks wast only a html file, I used to put a link to it as a bookmark, open it in the browser and then search it through there. That way I could easily search the folder names, etc.

But that´s not possible anymore, only if you export you bookmarks once in a while to a html file.

I wonder how that's not a problem to a lot more people. I also use Go to parent folder extensions which helps a lot but doesn't solve the problem.

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  • This is the only answer that solves the problem - export to html, open that, then search for your folder. Nothing else here functions to solve the problem in a modern Firefox browser. This solution does work, and it is the only known solution that works. I've tested this with bookmarks on the order of ~4 MB size and it's not prohibitively slow. This is the answer until there's a new software solution.
    – AlanSE
    Commented May 9, 2013 at 16:37
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In the menu select Bookmarks

Select Organize Bookmarks

Expand BookMark Menu.

(or )

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Smart+Bookmarks+folders

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I'm one of those that like to tweak my folder hierarchy, so the lack of a 'folder' search in FireFox is a real problem and troubled me for years.

Here is my solution:

  1. export your bookmarks to HTML.
  2. open the resulting webpage
  3. search for your folder. It can be found as 'text' in the webpage display of your bookmarks.
  4. there is no indentation to help you 'see' the folder structure, but it is displayed as if you 'expanded all'. All nested folders are displayed, then the next folder (and subfolders).
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You have the following add-ons that may implement the feature youre looking for. I'm aware the post is answered, but it's an improved answer so here it goes.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/show-parent-folder/

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/locate-in-bookmark-folders/

The second one seems to be THE ONE you're looking for, but it's not updated anymore, anyway, maybe by fixing max version will continue working.

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Here is a search that worked for me:

Configuration: I used my Windows XP computer. I used Xmarks to sync my bookmarks between Firefox and IE. In file Explorer, search in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Favorites for your target folder. You will find the folder that you are looking for.

I don't think this method depends on the operating system. The Favorites folder is there for IE.

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  • It certainly depends on the operating system: other operating systems will put that file in a different place and, you know, might not have IE available.
    – David Richerby
    Commented May 18, 2015 at 8:25

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