# Share a bookmark folder with someone: what works

> **TL;DR** Neither Chrome nor Safari documents a way to share a bookmark folder with another person. Chrome's bookmark sync covers your own signed-in devices, and the only shared collection Apple documents for Safari is a Shared Tab Group, which holds tabs, not bookmarks. The workarounds are a Shared Tab Group, an exported bookmarks file sent by hand, or sending each link straight to the person so both of you keep it.

Neither Chrome nor Safari documents a way to share a bookmark folder with someone else: Chrome's bookmark sync covers your own signed-in devices, and the only shared collection Apple documents for Safari is a Shared Tab Group, which holds tabs rather than bookmarks. To keep one set of links with another person, you share a Tab Group, pass an exported bookmarks file back and forth, or send each link straight to them so it lands in both your collections.

## Can I share a bookmark folder with another person in Chrome or Safari?

Neither browser's help pages describe one. Google's help page on Chrome bookmarks says that "when you sign in to Chrome with your Google Account, you can use bookmarks and other info on all your devices", and documents no way to share a bookmark or a folder with a second person. The one per-page sharing it documents is the More > Cast, save, and share menu, which hands a single tab to another app.

Apple's guides describe the same shape for Safari. With iCloud for Safari turned on, bookmarks, Reading List, open tabs and Tab Groups stay up to date on your iPhone, iPad and Mac, and every device has to be signed in to the same Apple Account. That keeps one person's devices in step. Apple does not describe it as sharing with anyone else, and the only shared Safari collection its guides document is a Shared Tab Group.

So "shared bookmark folder" means a workaround in both browsers.

## What are the workarounds, and where do they fall short?

There are two, and each falls short of a shared folder in a different way: a Safari Shared Tab Group holds tabs rather than bookmarks, and a Chrome export is a one-off copy that never syncs.

**Share a Tab Group in Safari.** A Tab Group is a set of tabs, and Safari can share one through Messages with people who use iCloud. On a Mac:

1. Hold the pointer over the Tab Group in Safari's sidebar and open its menu.
2. Choose Share Tab Group, then Messages, and pick the person.

After that, everyone in the group can add and remove tabs, and everyone sees the changes in real time. Activity updates appear in the Messages conversation you shared it in, and you can start a Messages chat or a FaceTime call with the whole group from Safari. Links that arrived in Shared with You can be moved into a Tab Group from Safari's start page on iPhone, with Open in Tab Group.

The limits are in the requirements and in what a group holds. Everyone must be signed in to their Apple Account, have Safari turned on in iCloud settings and have two-factor authentication on. Apple's pages describe adding and removing tabs, not folders, tags or notes inside a group. From Manage Shared Tab Group you can remove a person, add people or stop sharing, and the pages do not say which participants may do that.

**Export and import in Chrome.** To hand a collection to someone who uses Chrome:

1. Open Chrome, go to More > Bookmarks and lists > Bookmark Manager.
2. Choose More > Export Bookmarks. Chrome saves your bookmarks as one HTML file.
3. Send the file by email or a message.
4. The other person goes to More > Bookmarks and lists > Import bookmarks and settings > Choose file.

If they already have bookmarks, the imported ones go into the "Other bookmarks" folder. Nothing stays in sync after the import, so every new link means another export and another import.

**Send the page itself.** Both browsers can send one page through another app: Chrome's Cast, save, and share menu, and Safari's Share button on a Mac, which sends through Mail, Messages, Notes, Reminders and more. That reaches the person, and the link then lives in a chat thread, not in either of your bookmarks.

## How do two people keep one shared set of links?

Send each link straight to the other person in a place that files it for both of you, so neither of you copies it from a chat into bookmarks by hand. Shareling, a Mac, iPhone and iPad app, is built on that idea. A link you send appears in your library and in theirs, and a link you keep for yourself sits beside them.

The mechanism is a channel. In Shareling a channel is between exactly two people and runs one way: you own the channel for links you send, and the other person owns the channel for links they send you, so two people who send in both directions have two channels. A sent link exists once, in the sender's channel. Neither library makes a copy; each is a view over the channels you take part in plus your own private links. Ruling S-02 in the product's design record puts it this way: sending places the link in the sender's library, and receiving places it in the recipient's, with neither "a second write".

To send from an iPhone or iPad:

1. Open the share sheet on the page and pick Shareling.
2. Write a note in the field that reads "Add a note or add to folder" if the other person needs context.
3. Under Send to, tap the person's initials instead of Self, then tap Send.

![The Shareling share sheet on iPhone: a link, the note field with an #inspiration folder chip, and a Send to row with a person's initials beside Self](/content/share-bookmark-folder-with-someone/share-sheet-send-to.webp)

Each link goes to one person. Shareling has no multi-select and no multi-person channels (ruling S-03), so sending one article to two friends is two sends, each able to carry a different note. If the same page reaches your library more than once, the library shows it once.

This is where a Safari Shared Tab Group does better. It can hold up to 100 participants and everyone edits the same set, while Shareling covers exactly two people per channel and a link, once sent, belongs to its sender. If three flatmates want one list they all edit, the Tab Group fits and Shareling does not.

## What does the other person see, and what stays private?

The other person sees the link, its title and preview, and the note you wrote when you sent it; your folders, whether you have read it and whether you hid it stay with you. In the code, the link record carries the URL, the page's metadata and the note. It has no field for folders or read state.

Everything that is yours about a link lives in your own annotation of it: your folders, read or unread, hidden, Favorite and Read later. Shareling keeps that record in your own private zone and never writes it to the sender's; the code that saves it touches no link record, so nothing it writes can reach a zone someone else owns. Ruling S-07 made that a rule: whether you have read a link is not reported to the person who sent it. So:

- **Opening a link tells the sender nothing.** Read state lives on your side only.
- **Your folders never travel.** Ruling S-04: folders "are private to whoever applied them and never travel. The note travels and is a field on the link record, written once at send time."
- **Hiding a link is private too.** Hide in the library's menu removes it from your view and destroys nothing (ruling S-09); the sender still has it.
- **Your name for them is yours.** The channel record holding your label for the other person lives in your library and is never shared, so they do not see what you call them.

In the library, each card carries a person's initials: the sender's on a link you received, the recipient's on a link you sent, and none on a link you kept for yourself.

## How do we organise shared links by project?

Each of you files links under your own folders, and a link can sit under two projects at once; the folders themselves are never shared. A Shareling folder works like a tag. In the iPhone and iPad share sheet, type `#redesign` followed by a space in the note field and the name becomes a chip; type a second `#name` and the link is filed under both. On a Mac, folders appear in the library's sidebar, and a folder name matches without regard to case, so `Design` and `design` are one folder.

There is no shared project folder in Shareling, and that is a choice with a stated reason. Ruling S-04 says filing "is honest only when unobserved": a folder called "later, maybe" is only useful if you can apply it without the sender reading it. The cost: two people cannot keep one shared folder, so if you both want links grouped the same way, each of you files them.

The note is the shared part. Put the project name in the note when you send, "for the redesign: pricing page ideas", and the other person sees it on the link. The library's search covers each link's title, URL, note and page description, so a project named in notes can be found by searching for it. That gives two people a common word to search for while each keeps their own filing.

The [guides](/guides) and [features](/features) indexes list the other Shareling walkthroughs, and [plans](/plans) covers what Shareling costs.

## Frequently asked questions

### Can I share a bookmark folder in Chrome with someone else?

Google's Chrome help documents no way to share a bookmark or bookmark folder with a second person. Bookmark sync works across your own devices when you sign in with your Google Account. To hand a collection over, you export your bookmarks as an HTML file, send it, and the other person imports it; nothing stays in sync after that.

### Can I share Safari bookmarks with my partner?

Apple's Safari guides describe iCloud sync of bookmarks across devices signed in to the same Apple Account, not sharing them with another person. The shared collection Apple does document is a Shared Tab Group, sent through Messages, where every participant can add and remove tabs.

### How many people can join a Safari Shared Tab Group?

Apple's Safari guide for Mac says a Shared Tab Group can have a total of 100 participants. Everyone needs to be signed in to their Apple Account, with Safari turned on in iCloud settings and two-factor authentication on.

### If I send someone a link in Shareling, do they see my folders?

No. Shareling folders are private to the person who applied them and never travel with a link. The other person receives the link and the note you wrote when you sent it, and files it under folders of their own if they want to.

### Does Shareling tell the sender when I open a link?

No. Whether you have read a link is stored in your own private zone in Shareling, never in the sender's, so nothing about opening it reaches them.