This free app keeps me from getting lost on the Internet

• It’s like a vault for my bookmarks
• Organizing is made simple
• You can save more than just bookmarks
• You can have AI help you organize

If you’re like me, it’s hard to remember where you saw something on the Internet. You meant to come back to it later, but now you can’t recall what site it was on — or even what platform. Was it something you read on your phone? Your tablet? Your laptop? Was it an article or an Instagram post? Trying to trace it back can be relentlessly frustrating.

It’s why bookmarks are such a help. Rather than digging through your history on your browser to see what you’ve viewed in the past, bookmarks can just bring you to the exact site that you have viewed and want to revisit. They are ideal for sites that you visit frequently, but a short-term bookmark just to remember something specific should not be underutilized. It’s a helpful tool at the end of the day.

Most browsers offer built-in bookmarking tools, and for basic use, they work fine. But if you use multiple browsers for different tasks, it can get difficult. Even if you’re using something like Chrome and saving your bookmarks to your profile, rather than to the computer itself, it can be hard to keep separate work and personal items. That’s why I started using Raindrop.io, which has organized my bookmarks for the better.

It’s like a vault for my bookmarks

Access them via app or extension

Raindrop.io is completely free to download and use.

When you install Raindrop.io on your computer, you get to choose how you want to use it. You can install the standalone app or the browser extension — or both. I use both, but the browser extension is a must. Raindrop.io creates a collection of pages for you and keeps track of them for you.

Raindrop.io automatically creates collections of pages and keeps everything neatly stored for you. I love how seamlessly you can integrate and organize your content. The clean, minimal interface makes it easy to sort bookmarks into folders without feeling like you’re digging through an endless, cluttered list of titles — like some bookmark managers do.

Having to scroll through a minimized list of text to try and find a specific bookmark is awful. There’s a convenient search bar in Raindrop.io that will bring up any word that you’ve designated on one of the bookmarks, so as your list grows, you can find things more easily.

Organizing is made simple

There are many places you can save things

The more you build out your bookmark portfolio, the more ways you can customize where it goes. There’s a section called Collections that allows you to build folders to place things in. I typically put anything related to my work here, such as the Pocket-lint website, the back-end content management system, the photo editing software I use, and some of the other Valnet sister sites that I like to read as well. But I have other collections for other things, such as specifically sports reading, podcast listening, and streaming options.

Raindrop.io is basically a clipboard for anything you want to save on the Internet.

Inside those folders, I created subfolders where I could save specific, day-to-day links. For example, if I’m working on a story on Dolby Vision 2 Max technology, I can save links I find to a specific folder to compile for the story’s research. I can customize these folders with fun icons provided by the software. I can also add tags to the descriptions of the saved sites, making for another thing I can search for to bring up a specific link.

The lengths Raindrop.io has gone to make searching for links simple is impressive. It could be a chaotic mess with all the types of content you can save in one place, but the simple design is brilliantly done.

You can save more than just bookmarks

Bring all or just some of what you want into it

Rather than just copying and pasting a link into Raindrop.io, you can actually save specific parts of a webpage. For example, if I’m researching for a story and want to highlight a fact about some tablet technology that I read, I can highlight that text and right-click. With the Raindrop.io software installed, a new menu option comes up that says Save highlights. This will add whatever you’ve highlighted to the Highlights section of the app. This is another organization section of the app where I can find shorter versions of worthwhile info.

If you’re saving videos or audio clips, they’ll show up with a visual preview in your collection, which makes it way easier to recognize what’s what at a glance. You can save images, PDFs, and more all into this bookmark manager. Raindrop.io is basically a clipboard for anything you want to save on the Internet. When I want to pull something from that clipboard, I know where to find it.

You can have AI help you organize

This comes at a cost, though

If you want help organizing, Raindrop.io’s built-in AI assistant can help you. It can suggest ways to better sort your bookmarks, notes, and highlights. This is available in the Pro version of the software, which costs $28 annually. You do get added features with the Pro subscription, such as daily backups, full-text search, reminders, the ability to upload up to 10GB of files per month (you can only upload 100MB per month with the free version), and a duplicate or broken link finder. I haven’t upgraded yet, but the more I grow my library, the more I see the value in doing so.

The more you use it, the easier Raindrop.io gets. But, it’s important to remember to customize it as you go. You don’t want to just drop everything into one folder and then have to go scrounging around for it. It can take some time to set up your folders, but that’s also part of the fun. I’m not the best at organizing, so any way for me to simplify anything that needs organizing is important to me. I haven’t found anything that has made organizing bookmarks as easy as Raindrop.io.