Analyzing and Fixing Duplicate Bookmarks

Analyze

Selecting this menu item or button causes Bookdog compare and see if there are any duplicate pairs, and if so generate a list of them.  You can see the list of duplicate pairs by clicking Fix Duplicates.


Multiplication Of Duplicate Pairs

Duplicate pairs can be tricky! Let's say you have three bookmarks, A, B and C which take you to the same url, Bookdog will detect three duplicate pairs, namely (A,B), (B,C), and (C,A).  Similarly if you have four bookmarks going to the same url, you get 6 duplicate pairs; if five bookmarks, 10 duplicate pairs; if six bookmarks, 15 duplicate pairs.  [The number of duplicate pairs p and the number of bookmarks with identical URLs n satisfy the difference equation p(n) = p(n-1) + n - 1.]

Note from these numbers that if you have many triplets, quadruplicates, etc. it is possible that your number of duplicate pairs will be greater than your number of bookmarks!


Fixing Duplicates

Fix Duplicates

It takes two bookmarks to make a duplicate pair.  When it analyzed your bookmarks, Bookdog generated a list of duplicate pairs.  Selecting this menu item or button brings up a window which shows you, one at a time, the duplicate pairs in this list.  As each pair is shown, you may choose to delete or Mark "Allowed" wither of the bookmarks, or skip it and move on to the next pair.  

This menu item is not enabled unless the bookmarks in memory have been analyzed, and also at least one duplicate pair must exist.

Delete It

When you push one of these buttons, the indicated bookmark is deleted.


Mark It "Allowed"

You may want to have certain bookmarks duplicated.  To support this requirement, Bookdog allows you to mark these certain bookmarks as "allowed" duplicates.

This button allows you to so mark a bookmark when it is displayed in this Duplicate Bookmarks window.  To do so, click Mark it "Allowed" under the desired bookmark.


Skip

Clicking this button scrolls down to the next duplicate pair.  You should use this button if you are curious to see what next duplicate pairs, to help you form your plans, if you are not sure how to dispose of the currently-viewed pair.


Undo

Click "Undo" in the Edit menu to undo the most recent action.


The number of pairs remaining

This shows the number of items in the list of duplicate pairs "below" the one currently displayed, plus one for the one currently displayed.  Note that disposing a bookmark may sometimes cause this number to decrease by more than one, or to increase by more than one if you reinstate a bookmark by clicking Prior Pair.  This is because of the Multiplication of Duplicate Pairs, discussed above.


Save

If you have many duplicate pairs to fix, you should periodically click "Save" in the "File" menu to save your work to your hard drive.


Delete All

This button is provided for people who have more duplicate pairs than they have time to decide what to do with them.  If you click Delete All and then Proceed through the warning, Bookdog will step through each of the remaining pairs, beginning with the pair currently displayed, and delete one in each pair.

Although this is fast, it may in some cases delete the bookmark whose name and/or location you would have preferred.  But if your bookmarks are a big mess, with hundreds of duplicate pairs, this may be a good choice for you.  You can rename and move your remaining, unique bookmarks in the Main Window when it is done.  It is undo-able, so you can experiment.

If a deleted bookmarks has any Tags, Bookdog adds its tags to the tags of its surviving twin, so that no Tags are lost in the process.

How does Delete All decide which bookmark of each duplicate pair to delete? For each pair, Bookdog decides the one which has the least information, according to the following algorithm:

  1. If at least one of them has an Add Date, Bookdog keeps the one which is newer.
  2. Otherwise, if one has more tags, Bookdog keeps the one which has more Tags.
  3. Otherwise, if at least one of them has a Description, Bookdog keeps the one which has a longer description.
  4. Otherwise, if the names have different lengths, Bookdog keeps the one with the longer name.
  5. Otherwise, if one of them has been marked False Alarm attribute and the other has not, Bookdog keeps the one which has been marked False Alarm.
  6. Otherwise, Bookdog deletes the one which is nested deeper in your bookmarks folder hierarchy.  For example, consider the following duplicate pair of bookmarks.
    • A bookmark named iTunes (4), in a folder name named Music (3), in a folder named Apple (2), in your Bookmarks Menu (1)
    • A bookmark named iTunes Store (3), in a folder named Stores (2), in your Bookmarks Bar (1)
    In this case, Bookdog will delete the first bookmark, since it is nested deeper, at depth 4 in your hierarchy, while the second bookmark is nested only at depth 3.
  7. Otherwise, Bookdog keeps whichever one it finds first, which is not defined.