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BTK - Bookmark Toolkit

CLI tool for managing bookmarks and media with reading queues, content caching, semantic search, and multi-format export. Part of the Long Echo toolkit for personal data preservation.

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Bookmark Toolkit (btk)

A modern, database-first bookmark manager with powerful features for organizing, searching, and analyzing your bookmarks.

Features

  • 🗄️ SQLite-based storage - Fast, reliable, and portable
  • 📥 Multi-format import - HTML (Netscape), JSON, CSV, Markdown, plain text
  • 📤 Multi-format export - HTML (hierarchical folders), JSON, CSV, Markdown
  • 🔍 Advanced search - Full-text search including cached content
  • 🏷️ Hierarchical tags - Organize with nested tags (e.g., programming/python)
  • 🤖 Auto-tagging - NLP-powered automatic tag generation
  • 📄 Content caching - Stores compressed HTML and markdown for offline access
  • 📑 PDF support - Extracts and indexes text from PDF bookmarks
  • 🔌 Plugin system - Extensible architecture for custom features
  • 🌐 Browser integration - Import bookmarks and history from Chrome, Firefox, Safari
  • 📊 Statistics & analytics - Track usage, duplicates, health scores
  • ⚡ Parallel processing - Fast bulk operations with multi-threading

Installation

pip install bookmark-tk

Quick Start

# Start the interactive shell (recommended for exploration)
btk shell

# Or use direct CLI commands
btk bookmark add https://example.com --title "Example" --tags tutorial,web
btk bookmark list
btk bookmark search "python"

# Import and export
btk import html bookmarks.html
btk export bookmarks.html html --hierarchical

# Tag management
btk tag add my-tag 42          # Add tag to bookmark #42
btk tag list                   # List all tags
btk tag tree                   # Show tag hierarchy

Interactive Shell

BTK includes a powerful interactive shell with a virtual filesystem interface:

$ btk shell

btk:/$ ls
bookmarks  tags  starred  archived  recent  domains

btk:/$ cd tags
btk:/tags$ ls
programming/  research/  tutorial/  web/

btk:/tags$ cd programming/python
btk:/tags/programming/python$ ls
3298  4095  5124  5789  (bookmark IDs with this tag)

btk:/tags/programming/python$ cat 4095/title
Advanced Python Techniques

btk:/tags/programming/python$ star 4095
★ Starred bookmark #4095

btk:/tags/programming/python$ recent
# Shows recently visited bookmarks in this context

btk:/tags/programming/python$ cd /bookmarks/4095
btk:/bookmarks/4095$ pwd
/bookmarks/4095

btk:/bookmarks/4095$ tag data-science machine-learning
✓ Added tags to bookmark #4095

Shell Features

  • Virtual filesystem - Navigate bookmarks like files and directories
  • Hierarchical tags - Tags like programming/python/django create navigable folders
  • Context-aware commands - Commands adapt based on your current location
  • Unix-like interface - Familiar cd, ls, pwd, mv, cp commands
  • Tab completion - (planned) Auto-complete for commands and paths
  • Tag operations - Rename tags with mv old-tag new-tag
  • Bulk operations - Copy tags to multiple bookmarks with cp

Database Management

BTK uses a single SQLite database file (default: btk.db) instead of directory-based storage:

# Use default database (btk.db in current directory)
btk list

# Specify a different database
btk --db ~/bookmarks.db list

# Set default database in config
btk config set database.path ~/bookmarks.db

# Database operations
btk db info              # Show database statistics
btk db vacuum            # Optimize database
btk db export backup.db  # Export to new database

CLI Commands

BTK organizes commands into logical groups. Use btk <group> <command> syntax:

Bookmark Operations

# Add bookmarks
btk bookmark add https://example.com --title "Example" --tags tutorial,reference
btk bookmark add https://paper.pdf --tags research,ml  # Auto-extracts PDF text

# List and search
btk bookmark list                       # List all bookmarks
btk bookmark list --limit 10            # List first 10
btk bookmark search "machine learning"  # Search bookmarks
btk bookmark search "python" --in-content  # Search cached content

# Get bookmark details
btk bookmark get 42                     # Simple view
btk bookmark get 42 --details           # Full details
btk bookmark get 42 --format json       # JSON output

# Update bookmarks
btk bookmark update 42 --title "New Title" --tags python,tutorial --stars
btk bookmark update 42 --add-tags advanced --remove-tags beginner

# Delete bookmarks
btk bookmark delete 42
btk bookmark delete --filter-tags old/  # Delete by tag prefix

# Query with JMESPath
btk bookmark query "[?stars == \`true\`].title"  # Starred bookmarks
btk bookmark query "[?visit_count > \`5\`]"      # Frequently visited

Tag Management

# List tags
btk tag list                            # All tags
btk tag tree                            # Hierarchical tree view
btk tag stats                           # Usage statistics

# Tag operations
btk tag add my-tag 42 43 44             # Add tag to bookmarks
btk tag remove old-tag 42               # Remove tag from bookmark
btk tag rename old-tag new-tag          # Rename tag everywhere
btk tag copy source-tag 42              # Copy tag to bookmark
btk tag filter programming/python       # Filter by tag prefix

Import & Export

# Import from various formats
btk import html bookmarks.html          # Netscape HTML format
btk import json bookmarks.json          # JSON format
btk import csv bookmarks.csv            # CSV format
btk import markdown notes.md            # Extract links from markdown
btk import text urls.txt                # Plain text URLs

# Import browser bookmarks
btk import chrome                       # Import from Chrome
btk import firefox --profile default    # Import from Firefox profile

# Export to various formats
btk export output.html html --hierarchical  # HTML with folder structure
btk export output.json json                 # JSON format
btk export output.csv csv                   # CSV format
btk export output.md markdown               # Markdown with sections

Content Operations

# Refresh cached content
btk content refresh --id 42             # Refresh specific bookmark
btk content refresh --all               # Refresh all bookmarks
btk content refresh --all --workers 50  # Use 50 parallel workers

# View cached content
btk content view 42                     # View markdown in terminal
btk content view 42 --html              # Open HTML in browser

# Auto-tag using content
btk content auto-tag --id 42            # Preview suggested tags
btk content auto-tag --id 42 --apply    # Apply suggested tags
btk content auto-tag --all --workers 100  # Tag all bookmarks

Database Operations

# Database info
btk db info                             # Show statistics
btk db stats                            # Detailed stats
btk db vacuum                           # Optimize database

# Deduplication
btk db dedupe --strategy merge          # Merge duplicate metadata
btk db dedupe --strategy keep_first     # Keep oldest bookmark
btk db dedupe --preview                 # Preview changes

Configuration

btk config show                         # Show current config
btk config set database.path ~/bookmarks.db
btk config set output.format json

Shell

btk shell                               # Start interactive shell
btk shell --db ~/bookmarks.db           # Use specific database

Configuration

BTK supports configuration files for persistent settings:

# Show configuration
btk config show

# Set configuration values
btk config set database.path ~/bookmarks.db
btk config set output.format json
btk config set import.fetch_titles true

# Configuration file location: ~/.config/btk/config.toml

Advanced Features

PDF Support

BTK automatically extracts text from PDF bookmarks for search and auto-tagging:

btk add https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.00001.pdf --tags research,ml
btk search "neural network" --in-content  # Searches PDF text
btk view 42                                # View extracted PDF text

Hierarchical Tags & Export

Organize bookmarks with hierarchical tags and export to browser-compatible HTML:

# Add bookmarks with hierarchical tags
btk add https://docs.python.org --tags programming/python/docs
btk add https://flask.palletsprojects.com --tags programming/python/web

# Export with folder structure
btk export bookmarks.html html --hierarchical

# Result: Nested folders in browser
# 📁 programming
#   📁 python
#     📁 docs
#       🔖 Python Documentation
#     📁 web
#       🔖 Flask Documentation

Content Caching

BTK caches webpage content for offline access and full-text search:

  • Fetches HTML and converts to markdown
  • Compresses with zlib (70-80% compression ratio)
  • Extracts text from PDFs
  • Enables content-based search and auto-tagging
# Content is cached automatically when adding bookmarks
btk add https://example.com

# Manually refresh content
btk refresh --all --workers 50

# Search within cached content
btk search "specific phrase" --in-content

Plugin System

BTK has an extensible plugin architecture:

from btk.plugins import Plugin, PluginMetadata, PluginPriority

class MyPlugin(Plugin):
    def get_metadata(self) -> PluginMetadata:
        return PluginMetadata(
            name="my-plugin",
            version="1.0.0",
            description="Custom functionality",
            priority=PluginPriority.NORMAL
        )

    def on_bookmark_added(self, bookmark):
        # Custom logic when bookmark is added
        pass

Architecture

Modern Stack

  • Database: SQLAlchemy ORM with SQLite backend
  • Models: Bookmark, Tag, ContentCache, BookmarkHealth, Collection
  • CLI: Grouped argparse structure with Rich for beautiful terminal output
  • Shell: Interactive REPL with virtual filesystem and context-aware commands
  • Testing: pytest with 515 tests, >80% coverage on core modules
  • Content: HTML/Markdown conversion, zlib compression, PDF extraction

Database Schema

bookmarks
├── id (primary key)
├── unique_id (hash)
├── url
├── title
├── description
├── added (timestamp)
├── stars (boolean)
├── visit_count
├── last_visited
└── reachable (boolean)

tags
├── id
├── name (unique)
├── description
└── color

bookmark_tags (many-to-many)
├── bookmark_id
└── tag_id

content_cache
├── id
├── bookmark_id (foreign key)
├── html_content (compressed)
├── markdown_content
├── content_hash
├── fetched_at
└── status_code

Code Organization

btk/
├── cli.py              # Grouped command-line interface
├── shell.py            # Interactive shell with virtual filesystem
├── db.py               # Database operations
├── models.py           # SQLAlchemy models
├── graph.py            # Bookmark relationship graphs
├── importers.py        # Import from various formats
├── exporters.py        # Export to various formats
├── content_fetcher.py  # Web content fetching
├── content_cache.py    # Content cache management
├── content_extractor.py # Content extraction & parsing
├── auto_tag.py         # Auto-tagging with NLP/TF-IDF
├── plugins.py          # Plugin system
├── tag_utils.py        # Tag operations & hierarchies
├── dedup.py            # Deduplication strategies
├── archiver.py         # Web archive integration
└── browser_import.py   # Browser bookmark import

Development

Running Tests

# Run all tests
pytest

# Run with coverage
pytest --cov=btk --cov-report=term-missing

# Run specific test file
pytest tests/test_db.py -v

Test Coverage

  • Overall: 515 tests, all passing ✅
  • Core modules: >80% coverage
    • graph.py: 97.28%
    • models.py: 96.62%
    • tag_utils.py: 95.67%
    • content_extractor.py: 93.63%
    • exporters.py: 92.45%
    • plugins.py: 90.07%
    • dedup.py: 88.24%
    • utils.py: 88.57%
    • db.py: 86.91%
  • Interface modules:
    • shell.py: 53.12% (69 tests)
    • cli.py: 23.11% (41 tests)
    • Expected lower coverage for interactive/CLI code

Roadmap

Recently Completed ✅

  • Smart Collections & Time-Based Recent (v0.7.1)
    • 5 auto-updating smart collections (/unread, /popular, /broken, /untagged, /pdfs)
    • Time-based navigation with 6 periods × 3 activity types
    • Enhanced /recent with hierarchical structure
    • Collection counts in ls output
  • Interactive Shell with Virtual Filesystem (v0.7.0)
    • Unix-like navigation (cd, ls, pwd)
    • Hierarchical tag browsing
    • Context-aware commands
    • Tag operations (mv, cp)
  • Grouped CLI Structure - Organized commands by functionality
  • Comprehensive Test Suite - 515 tests with >50% shell coverage
  • SQLAlchemy-based database architecture
  • Content caching with compression
  • PDF text extraction
  • Auto-tagging with NLP
  • Hierarchical tag export
  • Parallel processing for bulk operations
  • Browser bookmark import
  • Plugin system

In Progress 🚧

  • Enhanced search capabilities
  • Reading list management
  • Link rot detection with Wayback Machine

Planned Features 🎯

  • Enhanced Domain Organization - Improved domain-based browsing and filtering
  • Bookmark Notes/Annotations - Rich text notes and annotations on bookmarks
  • User-Defined Collections - Custom smart collections via configuration
  • Browser extensions (Chrome, Firefox)
  • MCP integration for AI-powered queries
  • Static site generator for bookmark collections
  • Similarity detection and recommendations
  • Full-text search with ranking
  • Bookmark relationship graphs
  • Social features (shared collections)

Migration from Legacy JSON Format

If you’re upgrading from an older JSON-based version of BTK:

  1. The new version uses SQLite databases instead of JSON files
  2. Use btk import json old-bookmarks.json to migrate your data
  3. Legacy commands and directory-based storage are no longer supported
  4. All functionality is now database-first with improved performance

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Areas for contribution:

  • Adding new importers/exporters
  • Creating plugins for custom functionality
  • Improving test coverage
  • Documentation improvements
  • Performance optimizations

See the plugin system for the easiest way to extend BTK without modifying core code.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Author

Developed by Alex Towell

Related Resources

Explore related blog posts, projects, and publications

Blog Posts

BTK: Modern Database-First Bookmark Manager The Long Echo Toolkit: Preserving Your Digital Life

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