bookmarks Alfred not indexing my Chrome bookmarks because my Chrome is weird

[fbracht]

Hey Alfred team & community!

 

I have a problem with the Chrome Bookmarks feature because of the way my Chrome is set up. It will take a fairly long explanation of it for me to be able to ask for help, so sorry in advance.  

I used to run Chrome as my default browser but switched to Safari months ago. I got a job that requires me to use Chrome for work. This means my current setup is Safari -> default browser, Chrome -> work browser.

My work is somewhat complicated, with MANY web tools and reference pages I must access and switch between constantly, that's why Alfred's bookmarks feature is easily one of my most used features and very important to me, next to snippets and clipboard history.

However, here's the problem: when I transitioned Chrome from my default browser to my work browser, I initially created a second "Person" inside Chrome. So, the profile I actually use today for work is a secondary profile/person inside Chrome.

Since apparently Alfred only indexes bookmarks for the primary Chrome profile/person, what I was doing was copying-pasting my bookmarks in bulk from my secondary profile (the one I actually use) into my primary profile (the one Alfred would know how to index, the one I used to have as my default browser but now is useless as I use Safari, despite still being the primary Chrome profile because it's older).

What a mess, right?

Anyway, this used to work, but I quickly became grumpy with this hacky process. Since there's no way to change which Chrome profile is the default/primary one, I just deleted my primary/older profile. My thinking was that doing this would change my secondary profile into the primary one (since it's now the ONLY profile in Chrome), thus making Alfred index the correct bookmarks, from that profile, without copypasting hacks.

Well, it didn't work. Now Alfred just doesn't pull ANY Chrome bookmarks whatsoever.

 

I already restarted both Chrome and Alfred after making this change, but my bookmarks are still invisible to Alfred.

What can I do to force Alfred to index these bookmarks for me?

Thanks and sorry for the long-winded message!

Edited November 20, 2017 by fbracht

[deanishe]

Try this:

1. Quit Chrome
2. Open ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome
3. Change the name of the directory Profile 1 to Default
4. Restart Chrome
   

[fbracht]

Thanks, @deanishe! 

 

It didn't work, though... After I did this (I didn't have a `Profile 1` folder, just a `Profile 3`), my Chrome launched as a fresh install. No users/profiles were present. I set up my profile by logging in to Chrome Sync or whatever with my work account, now it's working and the bookmarks can be searched again.

 

HOWEVER.

 

I tested adding a new bookmark and Alfred didn't index this new one. I went back into the Chrome folder you instructed me to open, and now I have folders both for `Default` and `Profile 3`. It appears that when I signed into Google Sync with that, Chrome re-created the profile as `Profile 3`. The folder's "Date Modified" info in Finder matches the time when I created the new bookmark to test (while the `Default` folder's time of "Date Modified" matches roughly when I launched Chrome right after renaming the folder). 

[deanishe]

Darn. So yeah, you now how two copies of the same profile, but Alfred is looking at the one in Default and Chrome is using the one in Profile 3.

If I were you, I'd quit Chrome, move both profile directories to the Desktop, then log into Chrome Sync again. That should re-create the Default profile, and then Alfred and Chrome will both be looking in the same directory.

 

If Chrome puts it back in Profile 3 and is only seeing that single profile, you could try symlinking Profile 3 to Default.

[fbracht]

4 hours ago, deanishe said:

If Chrome puts it back in Profile 3 and is only seeing that single profile, you could try symlinking Profile 3 to Default.

 

Yeah, I guess I'm going to be needing instructions on how to do this... 

 

Chrome really did put my profile on `Profile 3` for some reason. Now I don't even have a `Default` folder.

[deanishe]

Erm … personally, I'd probably quit Chrome, drag the whole Chrome directory to my Desktop (for backup), then run Chrome again and log in to Chrome Sync.

 

If that still doesn't give you a Default directory:

 

Go the the directory in Terminal (you can open a Terminal window, type cd (with a trailing space) and then drag the folder from Finder to it and hit ↩).

 

Then type ln -s "./Profile 3" ./Default

 

Hopefully, that will cause Alfred to read the linked profile while Chrome uses the real one.

 

[fbracht]

27 minutes ago, deanishe said:

Go the the directory in Terminal (you can open a Terminal window, type cd (with a trailing space) and then drag the folder from Finder to it and hit ↩).

 

Then type ln -s "./Profile 3" ./Default

 

Hopefully, that will cause Alfred to read the linked profile while Chrome uses the real one.

 

2

 

Can I do this part without doing the other part first? This is the symlink thing you mentioned earlier, isn't it? I don't mind what the folder is actually called if this thing works.

[fbracht]

I went ahead and tried typing this command: ln -s "./Profile 3" ./Default

 

It doesn't error out on iTerm or anything, but it also does nothing. Sadly, still doesn't index new/changed bookmarks.  

[fbracht]

2 hours ago, deanishe said:

Erm … personally, I'd probably quit Chrome, drag the whole Chrome directory to my Desktop (for backup), then run Chrome again and log in to Chrome Sync.

 

 

 

This did it! Thank you! 

 

Once I let Chrome create the whole folder again, my synced profile went into a folder called "Default" again. And now my bookmarks are immediately sync'd at every change or addition. It's beautiful!

[jder]

I have several profiles and would love for Alfred to read them. Is there a way to get Alfred to look at non-"Default" profiles?

[deanishe]

Not yet, no.