Feature request: show bookmarks in a sidebar

[rebron]

Carrying over from: brave/browser-laptop#5208

Display bookmarks in a sidebar, similar to Firefox/Safari.

[rossmoody]

I think it might help to redefine the scope of what introducing a sidebar component into our layout means for this one. Both Firefox and Safari have sidebars but they provide a lot more value than just a bookmark manager. They seem to also house Reading Lists, Favorites, History, Synced Tabs, etc...

We also will likely soon have the ability to leverage an extension like this which would fulfill this request so if this one is worth pursuing we might need to give more thought to defining a sidebar component for Brave and incorporate bookmark functionality into it.

[JaneSmith]

I'd just like to say that this is one of the few major blockers I have preventing me from using Brave instead of Firefox. A horizontal tab bar just doesn't cut it for people with more than a few tabs open - and browsers also tend to suffer performance issues with large numbers of tabs - so my workflow in Firefox is to keep my bookmarks sidebar open at all times and use it as a makeshift vertical tabs bar. I "suspend" tabs by bookmarking them to my sidebar, and the vertical layout makes it very easy for me to navigate.

Brave doesn't offer this, so I'm stuck using horizontal tabs or a separate bookmarks window. It just doesn't work well for me. I also don't want to use a third-party extension, written by some random guy, as it won't work as reliably as a built-in feature, and is yet another source of code I have to audit and decide whether to trust.

I'd very much appreciate it if a sidebar feature could be implemented in Brave. Other Chromium-based browsers like Vivaldi seem to have implemented this beautifully.

[djagoo]

Same here, the only thing preventing me from switching from Firefox to Brave is the missing sidebar.

[rcharif]

Agreed-- I've been exploring and appreciating Brave, almost ready to switch from Firefox, but not if I have to give up the convenience of being able to display and search many bookmarks without opening a whole new tab. Needless to say the bookmark sidebar display needs to have a search/filter feature as does FF.

[JOduMonT]

the sidebar in Firefox and Vivaldi is very useful and I miss it
while I could block ads in Firefox and Vivaldi, I can't add the sidebar in Brave and this really turn me off

I have the habit of using the sidebar for DeepL and BitWarden which save me a lot of time during my days

[brk114]

This is a work around from brave community in the meantime the feature releases.
community workaround
This is how it look once do turn on that flag.

[bsclifton]

Closing as a duplicate of #20500