The Chrome bookmarks bar: show it, hide it, fix it
“The bookmarks bar” usually means one of three questions: how to turn the visible bar on or off, why it (or the bookmarks on it) disappeared, and where the underlying file is stored on disk.
Last updated
Quick answer
Press Ctrl+Shift+B (Cmd+Shift+B on Mac) to show or hide the bookmarks bar, or go to ⋮ → Bookmarks and lists → Show bookmarks bar.
Showing or hiding the bar
Press Ctrl+Shift+B (Cmd+Shift+B on Mac), or go to the three-dot menu → Bookmarks and lists and toggle “Show bookmarks bar.” It's the row directly under the address bar — hidden by default in a fresh Chrome profile until you save your first bookmark to it.
If the bar or your bookmarks disappeared
Work through these in order — the first two fix most cases in seconds.
- The bar is toggled off: press Ctrl+Shift+B (Cmd+Shift+B)
- You're in a different Chrome profile or signed out: click your profile picture in the toolbar
- The bar is visible but empty: search for a bookmark in chrome://bookmarks — it may have moved to Other bookmarks
- They're really gone: don't restart Chrome yet — the Bookmarks.bak file in your profile folder (below) is usually the last good copy
Where the Bookmarks file lives on disk
Chrome stores bookmarks in a JSON file named Bookmarks (no extension) inside your profile folder, next to an automatic backup called Bookmarks.bak — not something you're meant to edit by hand, but useful when troubleshooting sync or restoring from a backup.
- Windows: C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks
- Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Bookmarks
- Linux: ~/.config/google-chrome/Default/Bookmarks
- Swap “Default” for your specific profile folder (Profile 1, Profile 2…) if you use more than one Chrome profile
Why the bar runs out of room fast
The bar is a single row — once titles get long enough or you've saved more than about a dozen, the rest collapse into an overflow menu (a small »), and anything past that point is effectively invisible unless you go looking for it. Shortening names helps: right-click a bookmark → Edit and delete the name to leave just the favicon.
When the bar is really a team's link list
If your bookmarks bar is full of dashboards, tools and docs your colleagues also need, it belongs somewhere shared. Import your bookmarks into a Linkbry workspace and the team gets one set of nested folders and tags that everyone sees — and the extension's ;; picker drops any of those links into Slack or email without opening a tab.
Frequently asked questions
Press Ctrl+Shift+B (Cmd+Shift+B on Mac), or open the three-dot menu, go to Bookmarks and lists, and toggle “Show bookmarks bar” on.
It's most likely just toggled off — Ctrl+Shift+B brings it back. If the bookmarks themselves are missing rather than just the bar, check that you're in the right Chrome profile and signed in, since each profile keeps a separate Bookmarks file.
In your Chrome profile folder: AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks on Windows, Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Bookmarks on Mac, and .config/google-chrome/Default/Bookmarks on Linux.
Start organizing your links today
Free forever for one person. No credit card needed.