Chrome Extension Guide

Overview

The Markcat Chrome extension (MV3) provides a new tab page with your bookmark library and context menu capture for saving links.

Saving Bookmarks

• Context menu: Right-click any page or link → “Save to Markcat”.
• Extension icon: click to save the current page; right-click it to switch the click to opening the manager, or for Save all tabs in window / Save all tabs in all windows.
• Bookmarks import: import your existing bookmarks (Netscape .html export) via the Import / Export dialog on the new tab page toolbar.
• Import from Chrome: import your Chrome bookmarks folder by folder from the Import / Export dialog.

DOM HTML, screenshots, favicons, and Open Graph images are optional capture data. The extension omits any optional field that exceeds the service request limit and still saves the bookmark URL and title. An oversized URL remains a visible save failure rather than being truncated.

Window/all-window saves capture screenshots in one paced sweep, then restore the previously active tab before page metadata is downloaded or the tabs are sent to the service. Discarded and still-loading tabs are not activated; their URL and title are saved and the service can backfill missing screenshots later. A large window goes to the service in several requests, in tab order; if one fails, only its tabs fail and the rest are saved.

New Tab Page

The extension replaces your new tab with the Markcat dashboard:

• Category tree — left sidebar, expandable/collapsible hierarchy.
• Bookmark grid — cards showing title, favicon, OG image preview, and category.
• Search — full-text search across titles, URLs, and extracted content.
• Filters — the sidebar’s Issues (Dead links, Broken links, Bot protected, Awaiting / failed, Low confidence, Fetch failed), Smart Filters (Favourites, Recently added, Needs review, No screenshot, Title only, Uncategorized) and Tags sections, each shown once it has bookmarks. The toolbar sorts by date, title, category or confidence.

Click a sidebar section heading to fold it; its state is remembered across newtabs. Tags appear as chips: click one to filter, and click it again to clear. Needs review filters the library; the arrow on that row opens the Review Queue.

Settings

Refresh saved screenshot in the toolbar/page context menu replaces the current page’s screenshot only. Save the page first. It keeps its content, category, tags and classification work; ordinary Save keeps its existing capture behaviour.

Open Settings with the gear at the bottom of the sidebar:

• Connection — mode (Local or Cloud), service URL, toolbar click action, theme (System by default, following your OS; or Daylight, Dusk, Midnight) and a connection test.
• Chrome Extraction — whether extension saves attach DOM HTML, screenshots, favicons and Open Graph images.
• Appearance — display options shared with the web app, plus this device’s tile image carousel, tile click and open-on-favourites choices. Open bookmarks in background tabs applies to this extension’s new-tab openings, including the drawer, context menu and review; it is off by default.
• LLM Provider, Content & Pipeline, Classification, Worker Config — shown while Advanced settings is ticked (on by default with a local service).
• Developer with a local service; Billing, Devices & Shortcuts and Account with a cloud service.

Managing Categories

Categories live in the left sidebar tree, not in Settings. Right-click a category to Rename, Move to root, or Delete it; drag a category onto another to nest it. Drag bookmarks onto a category to re-categorize them.

Use + beside the Categories heading to add a category. The magnifier finds category names while preserving their parent context; clearing the search restores the tree, and Escape closes the search.

Import / Export

Open the Import / Export dialog from the new tab page toolbar:

• Import — drop a Netscape .html bookmark export (Chrome/Firefox/Safari).
• Export — Netscape HTML (folders by classified category or original import hierarchy) or JSON (with optional extracted page content).

Onboarding

Open a new tab after installing — until the extension is connected, the new tab page is a short setup wizard:

1. Choose Local or Cloud.
2. Enter and test the service URL.
3. (Cloud) Sign in or create an account. With the hosted service, Sign in via markcat.app opens markcat.app, where your password manager can fill the login; click Connect extension there and the wizard continues by itself. If markcat.app doesn’t recognise your extension build, use the sign-in form below the button.

Provider and API-key configuration live in Settings once you’re connected.

Troubleshooting

• Sidebar shows Offline / “Can’t reach your Markcat service” — start the local service with python -m service.main.
• Bookmarks stay on Processing / Classifying — check Settings → LLM Provider; provider errors show in the worker log (open it with the status button at the bottom of the sidebar).
• Slow classification — cloud LLMs (OpenRouter, OpenAI) are faster than local Ollama on modest hardware.