Sync Profiles
Keep your personal bookmarks at home and your work bookmarks at the office
Xmarks gives you full control over which bookmarks are synced to which computers. This allows you to:
  • Keep your private bookmarks at home, but sync everything else with your work computer.
  • Set up a different bookmark toolbar at home and at work, but sync everything else as you normally would.
  • Create a shortlist of bookmarks for when you access My Xmarks from your mobile phone.
Screenshot of Sync Profiles dialog on my.xmarks.com.
Assign Bookmarks to Sync Profiles

The feature works by allowing you to group your bookmarks into different Sync Profiles. You can name each Sync Profile whatever you like and pick which bookmarks belong to it.

For example, in the screenshot on the left, there is a profile called “Office” which contains work related bookmarks like “Company Intranet”, but not personal bookmarks like “Cooking Recipes”.

Screenshot of Xmarks Settings Dialog with the Sync Profiles tab selected.
Assign Sync Profiles to Computers

Once your Sync Profiles are setup, you simply need to assign them to each of your computers. Multiple computers can have the same Sync Profile. For instance, all your computers at home could be set to sync with your “Home” profile.

Don't worry, if you don’t assign a Sync Profile to a computer, it will simply sync all bookmarks in your account.

Step By Step Instructions
  1. Visit My Xmarks and log in with your Xmarks username and password.
  2. Click on the “Sync Profiles” button in the toolbar.
  3. Create new Sync Profiles (e.g. "Home", "Office").
  4. Select which bookmarks should belong to them.
  5. Now open up the Xmarks settings dialog in your browser (Tools > Xmarks > Xmarks Settings...).
  6. Select the “Profiles” tab and click on "Change".
  7. Select a Sync Profile to assign it to that browser and you’re done!
Frequently Asked Questions
Which bookmarks and folders can I select for a particular profile?

If you have a lot of bookmarks, the list in that right pane of your Profile Manager will be very long. The list is divided into three sections:

  1. Bookmarks. This list contains all your top-level bookmarks and folders. You can only exclude or include items at the top level of your bookmarks.
  2. Bookmarks Toolbar. This list contains all of the bookmarks and folders at the top level of your Toolbar folder. By excluding items in this list, you can customize what you see on your toolbar for each profile you define.
  3. Passwords. This feature is being deprecated. For password synchronization, please see https://lastpass.com/.
Why can't I select subfolders?

Although it isn't immediately obvious, we're just trying to keep you and us out of trouble.

Imagine for a moment that we allowed you to exclude or include folders at any level of your bookmark hierarchy. Then imagine that you have a folder A, and A has a subfolder B. You decide that you want A to be in profile 1, but B to be in profile 2. Now imagine that one day, in a fit of pique, you delete folder A. Now when profile 2 goes to sync with the server, B no longer has a parent folder. Yikes!

You can probably imagine how we could fix up holes for you in your bookmark hierarchy, but the above example is just one of many troublesome situations, and frankly the solution isn't always obvious, and is nearly always very complicated.

We hope that you can get all the functionality you need by creating top level folders and using those to store all your profile-specific bookmarks.

What is that mobile.xmarks.com profile, and why can't I delete it?

When you visit mobile.xmarks.com, it will automatically use this profile. So if you access your bookmarks from your phone, you can use this profile to restrict your view to just those bookmarks that you want to see while you're on the go.

Can more than one machine use the same sync profile?

Absolutely! Feel free to use the same profile on all your home computers, for example.