30 May 2025

Managing Bookmarks the Emacs Way: Why I Built ESB

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The Problem with Browser Bookmarks

30 May 2025

Managing Bookmarks in Emacs: Why I Built ESB

The Problem with Browser Bookmarks

If you are reading this, maybe you spend most of your day inside Emacs. You probably already use it for emails, RSS, file stuff, even browsing web pages. But then, why bookmarks are still stuck inside Firefox or Chrome?

@@ -33,10 +32,9 @@ But for us who like to own our data and keep things inside Emacs, I think there

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Enter ESB: Emacs Simple Bookmark

So I made ESB. It's a small and simple bookmark manager that works inside Emacs. It also encrypts bookmarks, and you can sync them in any way you want.

@@ -45,10 +43,9 @@ So I made ESB. It's a small and simple bookmark manager that works inside Emacs. Idea is very basic: bookmarks are your data, so they should stay in your system, not in someone else’s cloud. Want to sync with GitHub? Go ahead. Self-hosted GitLab? Sure. Your own server? Even better.

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Technical Implementation

Bookmarks are saved in JSON file. Each one has URL, maybe description, and some tags. The cool part is the storage backend. By default it uses GPG to encrypt before saving:

@@ -73,10 +70,9 @@ You can use prefix args to filter by tag. This helps a lot when you have many bo

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Why This Approach Makes Sense For Me

The nice thing about keeping bookmarks in Emacs is not only workflow. It’s also about owning your stuff and making it flexible. You can grep them, version control them, backup with dotfiles, or write scripts to do whatever you want.

@@ -90,10 +86,9 @@ And if you sync with Git, you get history. Deleted bookmarks by mistake?


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-The Limitations
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+The Limitations
+
 
 But, let’s be honest. This setup is not for everyone. You need to set up GPG, Git repo, and remember to commit. If you just want bookmarks to work and don’t want to think too much, the browser way is easier.
 
@@ -107,10 +102,9 @@ GPG can also be tricky, especially when you use many computers with different co
 
 
 
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-Should You Use It?
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+Should You Use It?
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 If you live inside Emacs and care more about control than convenience, I think ESB is good for you. If you keep dotfiles in Git, run your own stuff, and like tools that play nice together, maybe try it.
 
diff --git a/posts/why-i-build-esb.org b/posts/why-i-build-esb.org
index 3484150..2e750b4 100644
--- a/posts/why-i-build-esb.org
+++ b/posts/why-i-build-esb.org
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-#+title: Managing Bookmarks the Emacs Way: Why I Built ESB
+#+title: Managing Bookmarks in Emacs: Why I Built ESB
 #+date: <2025-05-30 08:57>
 #+filetags: emacs esb projects
 #+ATTR_HTML: :border 2 :rules all :frame border
-- 
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