I have been dealing with this for about one year.
At least for me, it only seems to happen with items INSIDE folders located in the BookmarkBar. Items in the "Other Bookmarks" don't behave this way.

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Thanks for the report and wow. 

Also, for the identified duplicate bookmarks (one pair would suffice) - could you please open a new tab and type in about:sync. Then in the Sync Node Browser tab, expand the tree and within 'bookmarks' find the nodes for the duplicate bookmarks. If there are indeed duplicate - copy and paste here the two nodes' data. This will help us diagnose. 

Finally, seeing that the Windows label is on the issue - your sync mix is just Windows machines or is anybody seeing this without a Windows machine syncing? 

Do you have 'encryption all' - in which case, this is  issue 116262 ?

To help alleviate the issue, you may try any extension to identify and deduplicate the bookmarks' hierarchy (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/duplicate%20bookmarks) or please feel free to star  issue 117249 , if there is more functionality needed. 

Yes, I do have encrypt all enabled. Disabling it would fix the problem? Do you know what is wrong or still troubleshooting? Here are two entries which differ only with respect to internal details:

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Thank you! We re working on a fix. 

I have this issue too, though in my case it also occurs in Other Bookmarks folders

I also have this problem in Other Bookmarks folder on Chrome for OS X. In my case, the sub-folders (and some, but not all of the enclosed bookmarks) within the Other Bookmarks folder will multiply dozens of times within a very short space of time.

Until recently I was using Xmarks and turning off bookmarks sync to help solve the problem, but now with the release of Chrome for iOS I'd like to be able to use Chrome to sync bookmarks between my iPhone, iPad and 2 MacBook Pros.

have the same problem,using windows 8 consumer preview,it really annoying >.<

I have the same problem.  

I use Chrome on Ubuntu and Windows on 3 different machines: workstation, laptop, and home PC.   I used to get duplicate bookmarks, and switched to XMarks (disabling bookmark sync) to avoid it.

Now I've installed Chrome on my iPhone, and uninstalled XMarks, cleaned my synced data from dashboard, and re-attached each of my 7 chrome browsers starting with empty bookmarks to get the full sync.

However, randomly about once a week, I'll log into a machine and voila, top-level folders are being duplicated both in Bookmarks Bar and Other Bookmarks.  

It is very annoying and I am considering going back to XMarks.

I should add that the duplication is incomplete.  It is extremely frustrating, because I have to look through each folder to find out which of the duplicates is the one which is missing some 10% of its  bookmarks and delete it.

I'm afraid one day I'll make a mistake and delete the folder which had all the bookmarks.

Here is a workaround for the issue:

1) Disable Chrome bookmarks sync on all browsers
2) If you have lost some old bookmarks due to duplicates, import the old backups with those bookmarks and arrange such that the dup imported folders are adjacent to the current but incomplete versions.
3) Install "SuperSorter" chrome extension
4) Move all toolbar folders under "Other Bookmarks" 
5) Run the sort & dedupe multiple times until no more changes - now all the dup folders are merged and deduped.  You have the union of all distinct bookmarks.
5) Install Chrome XMarks extension.  Instruct it to "Upload Bookmarks To Server" the first time.

Issue here, too. Win 7, 64. Only seems to happen in the bookmarks bar folder and only with individual bookmarks, not subfolders themselves or inside of folders. Duplicates them twice, and they reappear after I manually delete them. Synced with Chrome on my Android phone. Don't notice any bookmarks disappearing but am terrified some of my thousands of research bookmarks will vanish without my noticing.

I'm experiencing this issue using Chrome version "21.0.1180.89 m", with bookmarks shared across a laptop, a desktop, and an iPad.

This last weekend I moved several folders from my bookmarks bar (e.g. with names "WOW", "D3", "MC", etc. and "C", ".N", "J", "Web", etc.) into new folders on my bookmarks bar called "Games" and "Dev". 

Today I see that both the "Games" and "Dev" folders are present, but so are all the folders that I'd moved into them (e.g. the "WOW", "D3", etc. folders).

As my QA guys are wont to say, "please advise."  :)

Please fix the sync duplication problem.

I thought this duplication was due to some 3rd party bookmarks manager I had had installed. My bookmarks number duplication grew until every chrome I use (desktops, laptops, android phone, iPad...) in sync mode started to drag and under-perform under the burden of ~5000 URLs. So, I manually removed all duplication, because not a single plugin out there was able to detect duplicates. I happily removed those plugins and cleaned up my bookmarks. I was happy for 5 days. This morning, I realized the duplication has started again. This is really annoying now. Please fix this as this forces me to seek for other browsers and makes me being less productive. For sure it makes Chrome not the faster browser on the web (as it cannot handle few 1000s of bookmarks...)

comment 15 exactly same for me ...

i really like chrome but if the problem always bothered me ...

Same issue here with me.
Please fix it ... it's annoying!

Same problem here... until this is fixed the "Bookmark Sentry" extension works well to clean up duplicates. It will also check whether links can be reached, but that can be turned off if desired.

Yeah, my problem is the bookmarks bar. I login to synch bookmarks on Chrome via an office computer, home computer and iPad.

Spent an hour cleanging up my duplicates the other day and now they are all back again.

Thanks for wasting my time Google. Fix this. Now!

This happened to me before and it had something to do with setting the "Encrypted data types" to "Encrypt all synced data". Last time, it happened when I changed my password. Recently, I changed my password again and my bookmarks are duplicating with each login. I've tried the following to correct this problem:
1) Change my "Encrypted data types" to "Encrypt passwords"
2) Change my "Encryption passphrase" setting from "Choose my own passphrase" to "Use my Google Account password".
3) The following two steps:
     1) Clear all my cookies
     2) In Google Dashboard, select "Stop sync and delete data from Google"
     3) Re-sync with only one computer (never sync with any other computer)
     4) Delete duplicate bookmarks
None of these procedures have worked. Currently I'm synced to only one Windows 7 computer and my bookmarks duplcate every time I log into chrome. Another problem is that Chrome sync requires me to re-authenticate (telling me I have a sync error). 

What is supposed to be an efficiency tool has eaten hours of my time. I've searched forums and other web sources. I give up Google. This has to be a bug. Please reply some resolution or at least let us know that you are actively investigating this. 

This. It's really terrible. Please do something!

Re "Bookmark Sentry"; does it still put up advertisements?
thanks

It does by default, but you can turn it off in the options.

Please ! I got the same problem, this is really awful... Even with a deduplicating plugin it always comes back worse... 

One more report. W7 64. I just did some deleting several days ago, and now they're reappearing. Dammit!

Have the same problem using windows 7 64bit, 7 32bit, xp, android, ios/ipad.  The problem was "fixed" once and then restarted  after I turned on 2-step verification.  I've since turned it off but the problem persists again.  I've deleted all the uploaded bookmarks and thought I'd signed out of all my instances of chrome.  Went to one of my infrequently used instances of chrome browser and it happened again.  I've uploaded all my book marks to Xmarks now and will try "cleaning" all the browsers on all computers again.  Bookmark syncing is a great feature when it works.

I have been having duplicate bookmark problems for about 2 years...
The steps described above work.... until it starts happening again.
Very frustrating.

PS: as a work around, this extension is great for cleaning up duplicates
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bookmark-sentry/bdglbbcbmgnimogcmcdenggkpdmihlga

I had this problem months ago but it was fixed for me. I still couldn't figure out why I'm not having this problem anymore and people are getting it.
My scenario:
- Two computers with Google Chrome. One is Windows XP and other is Windows 7.
- I only have folders under Other Bookmarks (Bookmarks Bar has only links, no folders).
- I use Google Account password, not a passphrase.
- No extensions installed.
Well, good luck guys... I know how frustrating it is :(

i'm running the latest version of Chromium (v22.0.1229.94) on Ubuntu 12.10 (64-bit.) i also have four Gmail accounts, but had no problems with duplicate bookmarks until i recently upgraded to an Android phone and started using Chrome for Android (running Ice Cream Sandwich.) now ever couple of days i'll all of the sudden see duplicates of every bookmark, including top-level and subfolders (and i'm getting duplicate folders, too.) i have my phone set to sync fairly often, but it doesn't duplicate bookmarks all the time (every couple days, it seems.)

once the bookmarks are duplicated, the duplicates are showing up in both Chromium on my PC and Chrome for Android, so i know it's a Google sync issue somewhere. i never had this problem using Xmarks (across different browsers and operating systems), but because their plugin is a paid app in the Play Store, i haven't installed it in Android yet. i installed the Bookmark Sentry extension earlier today and it made quick work of cleaning out the duplicates, but it's not something i should have to bother with anyway, especially if all of my sync settings are setup properly (which they are, i've triple-checked.) i have around 500 bookmarks and luckily Bookmark Sentry made quick work of deleting duplicates, but i can't imagine how irritating it must be for users with thousands of bookmarks.

it's more of an irritiation than anything, but bookmarks are such a basic part of a browser that bugs like this really shouldn't happen anymore.

re #30: speaking of that I realised I've had the problem since I started using Chrome for Android there too. Does the problem lie there?

Android may have been a factor for you guys, but not for me.
I have been dealing with this one and off for about 2 years and I don't even have an android phone.

Stopping Sync deleting all the bookmarks, and then syncing again usually solves the problem (until it comes back weeks or months later).

I have had this on both of my chrome notebooks for many months.  I occasionally use chrome on a winxp machine. It is possible the problem started when I had enabled in sync 'all encrypt', and/or when I had to change the encrypt using another phrase back to encrypt using gmail password.  My duplications are fairly uniform for all links in every folder!  

The only way to gracefully solve this problem is for google/chrome to enhance the bookmark manager, and provide a new function to delete duplicates.  This would be a more secure way of doing this than using extensions or 3rd party apps.  I assume, once the duplicates are removed [after the original bug causing the duplicates is corrected] deleting and then syncing would get rid of them on other machines of the same account too.

Duplicates are those whose data are identical and name are identical.  Kindly provide the new functionality.

I think the best method to over-ride / correct or whatever you want to call it, would be to provide us users with a bookmarks manager within google.com/dashboard.

Rather than just having the "Stop sync and delete data from Google", we should also be able to view our bookmarks and manage them for there, at least then, the next sync on all machines will be fresh from the server.

One step further on this concept is to maybe link our chrome bookmarks with Google Bookmarks - google.com/bookmarks.

Alternatively, chrome should provide some sort of internal information within the bookmarks file so that when the sync contacts the server, some sort of compare can be done to find which machine last synced with fresh data, if the current system has new data, upload that, if the current system is missing data, download it, if both, merge it.

I have the same problems and I had to stop using Google sync because of it.
It's really easy to replicate:

1. Start situation: 
   - Google sync is off (Google dashboard);
   - Chrome on Win7 PC has all my bookmarks;
   - Chrome on Android phone has no bookmarks and is not syncing

2. Enable sync on Google dashboard, not on Android phone: no problems

3. Also enable sync on android phone and do nothing else: no problems

4. Start using chrome on both android phone and Win7 PC: bookmarks start duplicating. 
Bookmarks duplicate both in the "other bookmarks" folder and my other bookmark folders in the bookmarks bar. After time, bookmarks duplicate 3x, 4x, ...
It seems there is no bookmark duplication in bookmark folders I didn't use...


This is not only really annoying, it makes using Google sync impossible. I'm tempted to start using Firefox on my machines because of it.

Similar problem here too.

I have Chrome browser on two Win7 PCs and on Android tablet. Whenever I add/alter any bookmark in either of the PCs, the android device syncs those changes (in the corresponding folders) but also adds duplicate bookmarks in the root directory of the bookmark manager. If I try to remove those duplicate bookmarks on the PCs, they keep reappearing after syncing with Android device. The only way I have managed to delete them, is by doing it from the Android device.

Is there any way to resolve this issue?

I'm having the issue as well (using syncing (and encrypting) everything across the following platforms: Mac OS X (latest), Windows 7, Ubuntu (latest), and iOS (latest) - iPhone and iPad).

Google, is this being fixed?

In my case, I find that I keep getting old versions of bookmarks coming back, despite deleting them.

For example, I will alter the name of a bookmark.  ...and then a few days later, I will see the old version of the bookmark duplicating back (so I now have two bookmarks, one with the old name, and one with the new).  Deleting the old one repeatedly doesn't help as it just reappears.

I'm syncing across three computers - all are kept up to date on Chrome.

I run chrome on 5 different computers. One at school, 3 at home, but also, I run Ubuntu on nearly all of them. I believe that this has something to do with the duplication of bookmarks. I attempted to use Xmarks extension as a way to remedy the issue, but that appears to have made the issue worse. It would duplicate bookmark bar folders without any bookmarks. The original arrangement was preserved inside the Other Bookmarks section. Using the syncing option in Chrome exacerbated the issue by duplicating the bookmarks, but in an older arrangement, losing the most recent saved bookmarks.

(No comment was entered for this change.)

Similar is happening to me. I am using Windows 7 with Chrome 25.0.1364.152 and iPhone with iOS 6.1 with latest Chrome from App Store. Stopped sync on both, removed all Desktop bookmarks from iPhone. Started sync on desktop, looks OK. Start sync with iPhone - duplicates. If anything, I would like to be able to selectively sync bookmarks/bookmark folders - this is quite the opposite!

Google Chrome	25.0.1364.152 (Official Build 185281) m
OS	Windows (7 -edit)
WebKit	537.22 (@144108)
JavaScript	V8 3.15.11.16
Flash	11.6.602.171
User Agent	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.22 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/25.0.1364.152 Safari/537.22
Command Line	"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --flag-switches-begin --flag-switches-end

I can't delete anything from my bookmarks manager and I have 366 entries of the same bookmark all entered on the same day.

I've deleted the cache on one computer. I have not really tried much else as a number of the previous comments were saying that other remedies were not working for them.

Entry 362.txt 2.4 KB   View   Download

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Fixed my problem. Disabled syncing my bookmarks, deleted my Google Data (from Google Servers).

Next, when I loaded the Bookmarks Manager I could only perform one action then the manager would not let me perform any further actions (move, delete). I exited Chrome, restarted and deleted the whole folder containing my 366 duplicate entries and that solved my bookmark manager "lock up" issue. Without exiting after deleting the folder I was able to continue moving, renaming and deleting items.

I've since re-enabled the bookmark sync with my Google account.

Hope this helps.

Same issue here.  Annoying to the max.

Same issue here. Bookmark Sentry is a nice chrome extension work around. But it's still exactly that.. a work around. Would like to see a fix of the root problem.

Same issue here.
I'm using chrome in 3 different PCs, one running windows 7 and the others with Ubuntu 12.04.
It happens with all recently modified bookmarks as I open chrome on another computer, different from the last one in the which I've been adding/modifing my bookmarks.

I have loads of duplicate bookmark files. Many are empty-really really annoying. Had Chrome for about 6 weeks but just started getting all these duplicates HELP HELP HELP please

What I'm seeing are duplicate FOLDERS with the same set of bookmarks in each folder

Having the same issue. According to Sentry, 25,000 of the same bookmark. Problem is, Sentry won't work if there are more than 100. I tried to delete them manually by selecting all, but it only gets rid of 25 at a time then locks up. Chrome is completely worthless at this point. Pathetic. See attached pic.

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Same problem. Some detailed info: Networked environment is 1 Win7 box, 2 Ubuntu, and 2 android devices (tablet and cell). Have been using Chrome sync on all but the 2 Linux pcs with no issue during the past year+. Setup 1st linux sys last month. No issues. Fully repartitioned a previous dual-boot Win8 (UGGGH!) laptop to become the 2nd full linux pc 2 days ago. Left wifi environment with a Samsung Android device (still syncing now over 4G), returned home this evening to 899 dups according to Bookmark Sentry....I'm stuped to say the least! I've read thru and didnt notice if the question was asked...is there a "restore bookmarks to previous date" ability hidden in Google services anywhere?

Same issue. Extremely extremely annoying. Didn't expect such thing from Google at least. 

Have same issue... was using Chrome for about 2 years now, but will have to change back to internet explorer because this gets really annoying. I already reorganized all my bookmarks 3 times by now... today, there was only bookmark manager opened out of all my programs on computer, I was reorganizing the bookmarks again... 2 minutes after I finished reorganization, they all duplicated and mixed again... no actions at all from my side, they just mixed up for no reason. I guess I will stop using the chrome until the problem is fixed. And by the way, I don't have any synchronizations with other browsers or computers, and I only used chrome all the time. 

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(No comment was entered for this change.)

decarie.suites: I noticed that the two MOE folders are different in your screenshot. The one below has two subfolders that the one above doesn't have. Do you actually use two MOE folders?

Can you provide more info following instructions in comment #2? What version is your chrome? Thanks.

I have this problem too.. I keep deleting the duplicates, but now it's gone crazy, duplicating folders, and doubles of doubles.. OMG.. I don't want to dump Chrome, but this is mad! Google, PLEASE fix this...
[using Chrome on 2 computers with Win7 and HTC smartphone with Android, I love the synchronization, but this duplication drives me crazy... :-s ]

Well, they're obviously not fixing this. Over a year's worth of complaints?  I'm out. There are too many other options without the headache.

I will go mad... Chrome keeps duplicating them over and over and over again!
GOOGLE, DO SOMETHING! PLEASE!

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I was already  mad...
This could be the only thing push me to Firefox from chrome

I came to Chrome from Firefox, and I don't want to change back..  but this is really surprising, how Google doesn't react to 1-year-lasting complains about a bug... :/

I just started getting this issue with the Gmail bookmark link. It started after I installed a bunch of chrome apps.

I have also had this problem over and over.  It is a nightmare and extends to my iPhone---I can't find anything, I can't file anything.  

I have also had this problem over and over.  It is a nightmare and extends to my iPhone---I can't find anything, I can't file anything.  

I have also had this problem over and over.  It is a nightmare and extends to my iPhone---I can't find anything, I can't file anything.  

My previous post:
code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=118105#c48

Incredibly, I haven't had duplicated bookmarks for some weeks now.
I've been adding less bookmarks and I've done some cleaning, but above all I've disabled "Dolphin connect" extension, that used to sync my PC bookmarks with "dolphin browser" on my android phone.
Hope this can help someone of you ;)

Attached is a dump of my bookmarks sync tree. I believe there is no personal data in there. On visual inspection, you should be able to find plenty of duplicates. None are intentional.

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same problem here, can not find anything, give up soon and turn back to Firefox

it sucks, as this problem is reported many times for years and years.....

I recently found this issue arising with my bookmarks and I am at a loss on how to prevent it from happening. I have double and even triple of some and trying to find the one I want is difficult. Very frustrated!

@khuno,Jacki: Do you have an android phone using the same google account? This may be a key part of the puzzle. I do, and the user above giving repro steps was talking about android phone.

Same problem, automatic sync between my Windows7 laptop (up-to-date version of Chrome) and my Android Jelly Bean phone (also Chrome up-to-date).

Found the following extension in the Chrome Web Store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bookmark-sentry/bdglbbcbmgnimogcmcdenggkpdmihlga

Will try to delete duplicated bookmarks with the extension for now, but a "real" bug fix for this problem would be much appreciated!!

i like chrome so much that i stick by it. But the bookmark issue is beyond belief. ive stopped syncing bookmarks completely. I have so much duplication, that i just cant manually manage it AT ALL. I have a few bookmarks in my bookmark bar that i use. The remaining bookmarks i WILL abandon till i know there is a major coding or review of this issue. I look at it now .. and i can see duplication.

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oh im sitting on version 29 or 30 of chrome

@look4mat: Do you use an android device?

I've started logging my tribulations in a google doc, and I've made some progress in getting my google account back into a sane state.

See here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14Qdf12HRTkNtRRu63S4GDU1tqRF7EMg5fCyMs92_5xs/edit

My procedure, in summary:

Dedup'd and backed up boorkmarks.
Changed password: https://www.google.com/accounts/b/0/EditPasswd
Stopped and cleared boorkmark data: https://www.google.com/settings/chrome/sync
In android, clear data and disabled native browser.
Cleared data for android chrome.
Reconnect bookmark sync in desktop browser.
Verify bookmarks are in account (~500).
Reconnect bookmark sync in android chrome.
Seems to work.
Verified that i can :
   * add from android and see on desktop.
   * move on desktop and see on android
   * delete from android and see on desktop
Re-enable native android browser.
Verified that i can :
   * add from android and see on desktop.
   * add from desktop and see on android
   * delete android bookmark from desktop and see on android
This check didn't complete: (maybe i was too impatient, only waited ~45 seconds)
   * delete from android and see on desktop
The (android native browser -> google account) connection seems much slower than any of the other connections.
I'm going to run my android with disabled native browser (and clear its data) and see if this works well.

 Issue 148939  has been merged into this issue.

Hi all,

There is a fix for one cause of bookmark duplication in M30 on Chrome for Android, which will roll to stable channel in early October.

We recommend that you disable sync for android native browser (called "Internet" in Settings -> Accounts -> Google). In general, steps in #76 look good. I don't think changing your Google password is necessary, though.

This post contains zea's advice for clearing up corrupted bookmarks.
I feel this should be in the Chrome help somewhere.
Even better, there should be a flow within the google chrome sync system to make this less arduous.

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=145016#c50

@rpop: I believe my procedure (in #76) is still insufficient. The bookmarks from any device that will be reconnected needs to be completely cleared before reconnect. In the general case, this represents a loss of data which makes me cringe.

Can we get an entry in the chrom(e/ium) help site with an officially supported procedure?

Summarizing zea's procedure here: 

 1) Clear your sync data (https://www.google.com/settings/chrome/sync). This will log all of your clients out of sync.
 2) Pick a client and clean up the bookmarks on that client.
 3) Set up sync on that cleaned client.
 4) On all your other clients, clear their bookmarks before setting up sync.

I believe bizarro things are still happening with my extensions, theme and autofill data, but I'll have to experiment more. It may be that the fully Correct solution requires a reinstall of Chrome for step 4 to fully clear local sync data.

I agree that posting an official cleanup procedure is a great idea, and am following up on that with the Help Center people now.

In 4, rather than reinstall Chrome (which doesn't actually clear local user data), go to settings and add a new user, then delete the current one. That will totally nuke the local user data. Then you can sign into sync from the new profile.

 Issue 176301  has been merged into this issue.

I think a survey of related tickets is helpful to make all the evidence available in one place. I apologize if you feel this is spammy.

I see that several of the root causes of duplication are fixed:
 * https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=24995
 * https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=102043
 * https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=108332
 * https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=114912
 * https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=116262
 * https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=154398
 * https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=239828 (private bug, but i'm told it's closed... Found via https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=234906)

This one is still open, although most likely has been fixed without closing it:
 * https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=61640

These are bookmark duplication reports marked as wontfix :(
 * https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=26243
 * https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=53802
 * https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=90596
 * https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=110526
 * https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=128879
 * https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=137870
 * https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=145016

An open issue about deleted bookmarks not staying deleted. It's not clear that it has a common cause, but certainly it exacerbates this issue.
 * https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=121928

Updating the procedure with @rpop's feedback in #81 (for myself and those that may find this thread).

 1) Clear your sync data (https://www.google.com/settings/chrome/sync). This will log all of your clients out of sync.
 2) Pick a client and clean up the bookmarks on that client. (There are some extentions that help: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search-extensions/duplicate%20bookmarks)
 3) Set up sync on that cleaned client.
 4) On all your other clients:
   4.1) Replace the corrupted profile: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/142059
   4.2) Set up sync for this fresh profile.

Thanks for helping with this.

We have a much easier alternate procedure, and would appreciate it if people with duplicated bookmarks could try it out and let us know whether it worked for them:
1. Install the SuperSorter extension and use it to delete duplicate bookmarks (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/supersorter/hjebfgojnlefhdgmomncgjglmdckngij)
2. Wait and see if those deletes propagate to other Chrome clients (desktop and mobile)

The procedure you're describing will also work, and we plan to describe it as well as a fallback option.

@rpop: That procedure definitively doesn't work. In fact when I've tried it in the past it seemed to make the issue worse. I eventually gave up trying to remove duplicates and they quit multiplying.

@rpop: Ah i think the key part of the workaround is missing:

 0) Disable bookmark sync in native android browser.

At that point, your simplified procedure may work. I don't know.

I figured out the solution and it is currently working for me right this second.

1) Disconnect all synced browsers (iPhone, PC, Android, etc.)

2) Uninstall all but one of the PC/Mac installations

3) Clean up the bookmarks in that browser. I found the easiest way to do this was to navigate to the Bookmarks file (C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default) and open it in notepad. Since you know which bookmarks are duplicating, just find them in the file and delete. I tried doing it with the extensions listed and manually in the bookmark manager of Chrome, but none of those methods worked.

4) Save the new bookmarks file in a safe place (your desktop would work fine)

5) Completely uninstall the last installation of Chrome

6) Log into the Google dashboard (https://www.google.com/dashboard)

7) Click "Manage Chrome Sync" and then click the "Stop and Clear" button on the page that opens.

8) Re-install Chrome on your PC/Mac & put the Bookmarks file back where you found it.

9) Log into your Google account to sync the browser. This will use your new installation with clean bookmarks as the basis for Chrome sync.

10) Re-install & log into Chrome in all other locations that you want it.


All done! Enjoy your cleaned up Chrome bookmarks :)

@dabonz: Have you re-enabled the android-native browser sync?
If so, for what length of time?

 Issue 291399  has been merged into this issue.

THis has been happening to me, as well. I'm using Chromium. 

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@Sam Some questions:

1) Have you noticed *new* duplicates recently?
2) Do you have an Android device set up to sync with your google account?

If yes/yes, try disabling the sync on your native android browser. I've disabled the native browser entirely. If this stops the duplicates from appearing, we've found our culprit.

Thanks for the questions. Here are my responses:

1) I recently stopped seeing duplicates. But I've turned off syncing between Chrome. Now I'm just running Chromium.

2) Have an iPhone with Google Chrome. Syncing is not currently turned on (hasn't been during problem).

I was syncing on three computers (two win 8 and one win xp). I turned off bookmark syncing, and deleted bookmarks on google dashboard, then re-added bookmarks manually. I now have the same bookmarks on all computers, but no duplication.

Off topic but how can I stop receiving e-mails for this issue?  I see no unsubscribe feature and when I go to https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/subscriptions there is nothing indicating that I am subscribed to this issue.

@workit... thanks again for your help on this issue!

@mike... there is a star next to the issue title. Click it until it is an outline (not yellow), this will unsubscribe you from notifications.

@Sam: Thanks. Just to be super clear, you've never had an Android sync'd to this account? Our best guess was that this was caused by the native Android browser (as distinct from Chrome).

The other known culprit is xmarks. Have you ever used it on this account?

I had an Android phone before there was a "Chrome" browser. I've definitely cleared sync data between that time. I only use Chrome Browser in iPhone (nowadays). 

Never used xmarks. What a conundrum then...

How bookmarks stopped duplicating for me:
I uninstalled Chrome from my Android smartphone :( That's it. My bookmarks never duplicate anymore! I started using Dolphin browser on phone, it can show you your Chrome bookmarks, so it's quite nice (except that I wanted a Google product.. But since Google doesn't fix this problem for YEARS..).

Having two different PCs (home and work) with Chrome sync turned on, doesn't duplicate bookmarks for me, so I think it was all phone's problem :/

@elf per my update in #78, there was a bug in Chrome for Android that caused bookmark duplication in some cases. The fix is coming in Chrome for Android version 30, which should be released this week. Once it's out, it should be safe to use Chrome on your Android again!

I am seeing this issue despite not having any Android devices.

@torzsmokus The other known culprit is xmarks. Have you ever used it on this account?

I have exactly the same problem. Last week I painstakingly deleted all the duplicates especially "new folder" in other folders (empty) - it took me hours to do deleting them in clusters but I did not find a faster way. This week the old setting is back!!!! (and I lost some new bookmarks). This is beyond annoying, please help!

Also Having this issue,Been awhile syncing to HTC One and PC windows 7 32bit Chrome. Ran Bookmark Sentry cleaned up removed duplicates that came from sync had already figured out the clean Google and resync from fresh and the initially when i sync from the PC there are 1249 bookmarks but once my HTC connects 18,000 bookmarks later the phone is still syncing and now the pc browser starts to show duplicates. Chrome beta is also has sync disabled. THIS HAS BEEN YEARS NOW. works one tenth of the time.   

Same issue here, would change to Firefox but it also has the same duplicating bookmark issue. Looks like both companies use the same crap programmers, both browsers are shit anyway, might be forced to use the dreaded IE.

All this is fine.  What the hell can I do about the problem?

Two years later and there is still no fix for this problem?

I have this issue also. I have never imported/exported bookmarks, yet the duplicates keep appearing.

I suspect the only way to fix will be to clear all sync data and start again. It would be nice if we could view/control the book marks that were syncing to each device.

Same problem here with Chromium version 32.0.1700.107 Ubuntu 12.04 (32.0.1700.107-0ubuntu0.12.04.1~20140204.866.1)

You can download vim and export your bookmarks from Chrome/ium and then run :%sort u
that'll remove the duplicates and shouldn't break the exported file so you can import it again. 

Hello, running 36.0.1985.32 beta and my folders keep getting duplicated. It's super annoying and I lose booksmarks because I don't add them to every duplicate.  Please fix.

	screenshot_105.png 80.8 KB   View   Download

 Issue 341591  has been merged into this issue.

Summary - Theory for iPhone + Chrome users: 

Anytime you or Apple 'Genius' does an iOS RESTORE or major iOS version update, such as iOS 6 to 7 on the same or new device, do the following:

1) Delete the Chrome app on your iPhone BEFORE launching it. 
2) Reboot the device
3) Install Chrome again from App Store, sign in and sync.

Long Version - Theory for iPhone + Chrome users: 

My guess is there are multiple reasons for the duplicates and one of them might be related to how chrome handles unique devices, especially on iOS, when the os is restored on a new device. I've been plagued with the duplicate bookmarks issue for a couple years now and I have a few thousand unique bookmarks and sync across multiple Windows, Macs and iOS devices.

As I purchase my new iphone and sometime ipad every year, I restore it from iCloud backup. Well, when I bought the 5s, after I restored my ios settings and apps from iCloud backup, I deleted chrome app before launching it and rebooted the iphone. When I reinstalled chrome, I hooked up sync ( encrypted) and all was good with no duplicates. 

Now, and month or so later, I broke out my old ipad 2 after I had upgraded it from iOS 6 to iOS 7. I believe apple does a restore when it does major updates. I wasn't thinking and I started chrome. After chrome starts and as I get the usual freeze of the chrome app for a few seconds while it's choking on the few thousand bookmarks to sync, I realized I did not want it to sync because I hadn't deleted & reinstall chrome after the iOS upgrade. So I killed chrome on the iPad as fast as I could (which I think was while it was in the process of syncing). I then deleted the chrome app, rebooted the iPad, and then reinstalled Chrome from the app store and signed in to sync. 

What I found was only 1/4 of my bookmarks were duplicated across my devices. After another cleaning session with Bookmark Sentry, it's been duplicate free ever since and I am able to use Chrome and sync across multiple windows, macs, and ios devices. 

This theory is based on coincidental evidence but it makes sense to me and appears to be working for my situation. I hope it might help others and would be interested to hear if it does. 

(No comment was entered for this change.)

 Issue 374639  has been merged into this issue.

#115, that sounds quite reasonable, and worth following up on (iphone/ipad users do seem to be reporting many of these issues).

+David, do you/Naveen have access to an iphone/ipad with which you could attempt to backup/restore after signing into Chrome?

I will try to repro with the steps provided in #115 and update.

I have tried resetting the ipad and restoring it from an icloud backup, but not able to reproduce the Bookmarks duplicating problem.

Steps followed:
1. Sign in to Chrome (this test account has few bookmarks and other data)
2. Backup to icloud.
3. Reset the ipad (Erase all content & settings )
4. Setup the ipad and select to restore from icloud backup.
5. Select the most recent backup.
6. Open Chrome after it got installed.

No duplication of bookmarks seen.

I will try few other scenarios like restoring from an older backup and see if I can reproduce the issue.

Thanks for giving that a try. Here are some factors that 'might' have an impact.

- Restore iOS onto a new device. A device where the user never had your chrome account on. My guess is that it might make a difference if the UUID's are different. 

- Chrome encryption done with a personal encryption key/password instead of the account password. I've always use a separate sync password.

- Incomplete synchronizations on a devices. How well does Chromium handle incomplete synchronizations? A year ago, I used to kill Chrome often on my iOS device when it would freeze trying to sync thousands of bookmarks.

- Can you automate the creation of a couple thousand bookmarks? Do most users have thousands? No, but it might make identify sync issues easier, especially where the device has a slow internet connection.

It might be hard to reproduce this now with the latest Chromium builds. It's possible that an older version of Chrome created the duplicates and people are still feeling the pain from older duplicates or older version of Chrome on one of their devices creating the duplicates.

I feel I rarely have newly created duplicates any more because of a combination of:
- using the latest version of chrome on all my devices
- manually de-duping bookmarks
- re-sync'ing bookmarks with latest Chrome

Which leads to another way of looking at this. On the flip side of trying to identify the cause, I assume these steps would fix the problem for everyone 100% of the time. If not, then there is an existing bug in current version Chrome.

1) Remove / uninstall Chrome (if iOS restart device after removing app) and delete all Chrome profiles except on 1 device.
2) Fully sync that Chrome profile
3) Clean up duplicate bookmarks
4) Fully sync that Chrome profile
5) Install Chrome on other devices, login and sync

My guess is that there would not be any duplicates created.

Try this  
1) Make sure two computers have chrome installed and bookmarks are insync and sync of bookmarks is turned on.
2) lUse the chrome extension api to move. bookmark on one computer
3)  Log on to the other computer and move the bookmark again.
4) Wait for sync to happen.
This should give you duplicates of the bookmark. I also noted that when moving bookmarks with the extension api they get new ids.

Here is is July 2014 and this is still an issue ?!?!?!?
I see that the status is "assigned" and not "resolved". 
Any chance that it has been fixed under another thread? 

I'm using Win 7 with Chrome 36.0.1985.125 and I've noticed this self replicating bookmarks problem has recently reared it's ugly head. 

 Issue 395236  has been merged into this issue.

Sorry for the lack of response. We haven't been able to reproduce the problem, which limits how much we can do.

Can you confirm that you aren't using Xmarks, Eversync, or the iCloud Chrome extension on any of your devices? They all sync your bookmarks too which can kick off a infinite loop of bookmark creation.

We'll try out the restore-to-new-iOS-device scenario soon when we get more test devices shortly.

Gentlemen, there is a workaround for the moment. Extension «SuperSorter»: chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/supersorter/hjebfgojnlefhdgmomncgjglmdckngij
The problem is in the Windows with «RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR». After that, extension removed as duplicates, and folders are moved forward URLs.

ATTENTION: probably makes sense to first disable and clear the synchronization, and turn again after the operation. BE CAREFUL WHEN DELETING SYNCHRONIZED FILES FROM THE SERVER!

+ Extension sort themselves folders, so don't know what to do, it is not difficult in principle.

———————————————

Господа, есть временное решение, на данный момент. Расширение «SuperSorter»: chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/supersorter/hjebfgojnlefhdgmomncgjglmdckngij
Проблема в Windows заключается в «ЗАПУСК ОТ ИМЕНИ АДМИНИСТРАТОРА». После удаляет, как дубликаты, так и папки переносит вперёд ссылок.

ВНИМАНИЕ: вероятно, есть смысл сначала отключить и очистить Синхронизацию в настройках, а после операции включить вновь. БУДЬТЕ АККУРАТНЫ ПРИ УДАЛЕНИИ СИНХРОНИЗИРОВАННЫХ ФАЙЛОВ С СЕРВЕРА!

+ Приложение сортирует сами папочки, так что не знаю, что делать, это не сложно, в принципе.

TOPIC ABOUT / ОТДЕЛЬНАЯ ТЕМА: productforums.google.com/d/topic/chrome-ru/vMzRpDh28MY

This is still a major issue for me....Now its deleting bookmarkes within folders and I disable Xmark then chrome sync re inabling them one then the other. I have been trying to deal but most of my bookmarks within folders are gone now....come on fix the problems all ready this thread is very old!

Hello lion. Chrome bookmark sync and Xmarks sync are not compatible. You will get weird and unsupported behavior when you enable both.

If you use only Chrome sync on all of your machines and bookmarks continue to disappear, please open a new bug. This one is about bookmark duplication, not deleted bookmarks.

Re: #115, we'll try this out with some new iOS hardware this week.

QA team here hasn't been able to reproduce the problem while doing an iPad to iPad backup and restore. Marking as unconfirmed for the moment.

I'd desperately love to figure out what step we're missing. Does anyone have a reliable way to trigger the issue (without Xmarks, Eversync, the iCloud Chrome extension, or any bookmark extensions on any of their machines)?

Just as a data point, I haven't seen this issue for maybe eight months now.

Yes, all I have to do is sign in from any of my ios devices and the problem starts back up.  Why can't you remove a complete bookmark folder from ios?

I have tried in so many ways to get rid of my duplicating bookmarks and its does not matter what i do the just keep duplicating. I have thousands of l bookmark. I think I have tried everything here. The only thing i have not done is reset my computer back to factory default though I am just wondering if I throw it in the front yard would that get rid of them.

Hi vhbigred, sorry for the frustration. If it's preventing you from using Chrome, you may want to disable bookmark sync under chrome://settings/syncSetup until we find the issue.

i have billions of duplicated (triplicaded, fiftycated, hundredlicated) bookmarks and bookmark folders.

	bookmarks.png 9.9 KB   View   Download

Just watched my bookmark bar explode and start duplicating and randomly sorting everything.  Have about 6 duplicate sets of bookmarks now.  It started randomly and I saw my entire bookmark bar shuffling around and going out of order at about 4PM CST.  Started again at about 7:20PM CST.  Seemed to start when I upgraded Chrome on my iPhone and the last time I had this issue was right after installing Chrome on my iPad.  I figured after a year the issue would be fixed, but I guess not.

#136: do you have the icloud extension (or any other bookmark-modifying extension) installed on any of your devices running chrome?

(No comment was entered for this change.)

Same problem here. It can't be that this problem still exists after MORE THAN 2 YEARS!

Here's how to reproduce (just one machine required):

Variant 1:
1. Turn off bookmark sync.
2. Move "Bookmark 1" from "Folder 1" to "Folder 2".
3. Turn on bookmark sync.
You'll get two copies of "Bookmark 1", one in "Folder 1" and another in "Folder 2".

Variant 2:
1. Turn off bookmark sync.
2. Rename "Bookmark 1" as "Bookmark 2".
3. Turn on bookmark sync.
You'll get both "Bookmark 1" and "Bookmark 2".

Variant 3:
1. Turn off bookmark sync.
2. Delete "Bookmark 1".
3. Turn on bookmark sync.
"Bookmark 1" appears again (actually it's  issue #121928 : https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=121928 but related).

Tested on Windows 7 32-bit & Chrome 38.0.2125.122.

OS: Windows 8.1
Chrome: 38.0.2125.122 m

Hi, we have received couple users escalate this issue recently as well. User reports since beginning of this Nov. he noticed duplicated bookmarks. He originally has 500 bookmarks (not duplicated) but not it's grew to 4500 and still continue to increase. 
Please kindly let me know what other information I should ask for from those users.
 

I have no idea I'm still experiencing it and have just stopped using my bookmarks for now, i don't have anything externally that should be doing it and i don't think anything has synced.

Hi,

this issue is NOT reproduced if we use * sync passphrase, but if we use
option"**Encrypt synced passwords with your Google credentials" - bookmarks
were duplicated.*
*I switched this setting to  using code phrase - and duplicating stopped.*

*HTH,*
*Evgeniy Fedorov*

2014-11-19 4:22 GMT+02:00 <chromium@googlecode.com>:

#140, the steps you describe are currently working as intended. When you turn bookmark sync off, we reset the local sync state and stop tracking change. When you turn it back on, we merge the cloud state and the local state. In the case of bookmarks that have been moved across folders, these are detected as different/new bookmarks.

None of the cases you mention though should trigger duplication of items automatically (i.e. without user explicitly disabling bookmark sync), and the duplicated bookmarks all should be in different folders. Are most of you seeing duplication within a folder or duplication of folders themselves?

I see duplication of both folders and bookmarks within folders. My bookmarks never stopped duplicating for years. I don't know when will the Google Chrome team care to fix this annoying bug.

omer: could you give us a list of the extensions you have installed? In particular, iCloud and XMarks are known to be confused by bookmark sync and trigger duplication.

It would also be useful to get a screenshot/dump of chrome://sync-internals from some of your devices.

I have approximately 14,000 duplicate bookmarks, all in the Bookmarks Bar folder.   Chrome usually crashes or becomes unstable if I even open the Bookmark Manager page.

I also get duplicate bookmarks on the order of 500-fold.  I can temporarily resolve the issue by disabling syncing and deleting the excess bookmarks from the Bookmark Manager.  The issue duplicates bookmarks in place as well as copying the Bookmark Bar to nest within the Bookmark Bar.  I first encountered this issue about a week ago, have cleared sync data, deleted the excess bookmarks locally, and signed back into Chrome.  I have three devices signed into Chrome - a Windows 8.1 laptop, a Windows 8.1 tablet, and an iOS8.1 iPhone 4S - and have encountered the problem on all three.  I was able to resolve the problem on the Windows devices as described, but the iPhone app had to be uninstalled and reinstalled due to the difficulty in performing any action en masse on that platform.

I did have iCloud Bookmark Sync installed on my tablet and my laptop.  I have removed it from both devices and disabled iCloud Safari sync on my phone.  I will report back if the problem returns after taking this action.

I found this trouble too, I delete all duplicate but it come back again and again.

	Chrome bookmark duplicate.png 116 KB   View   Download

I'm experiencing this bug on Linux (Netrunner 14 x64)

This started with Windows 10 for me.

Could you please add information as to which devices you are syncing on?

I have a Netrunner 14 desktop and an Android phone.

Others similar bugs reports :

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=439110

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=448810

MY bookmarks bar has duplicates X10 and continues to grow.  What can I do short of using another browser?

I'm getting some Bookmarks messing too. Concretely, I've been doing a manual cleaning of my bookmarks (deleting old ones and some duplicates) and, after all the work, I noticed the deleted bookmarks are appearing again here and there. What a (IMO) botched job...
 
I'm a Windows 7 64-bit user, I'm running Chrome 40.0.2214.111 m (everything updated) and I'm not using any sync extension or anything like that.

Here's what I recommend to help y'all.  No need to download any tool or work around or spend time deleting.

When you have the current correct Google Setting for your account do the following:

Ensure that you have changed to view in your Folders Options to show your hidden files and folders.  http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hidden-files#show-hidden-files=windows-7

Go to this path --  c:\users\<your username>\AppData\Local\Google

Copy the entire google folder to a backup location (doesn't matter where)

This becomes static and can be copied back into your \AppData\local\ Folder to overwrite any changes that may have occurred.

Unfortunately, you may have to make this a regular backup since the sync with Google Chrome is not working correctly at this time.  Remember to choose another location for the backup. \AppData location gets refreshed every time Google makes a change to your Chrome settings.

Hidden AppData.pdf 210 KB   Download

I cant believe Google still has a problem with this.  I experience it some years ago and thought it must be fixed by now.  Sadly I have wasted hours sorting my bookmarks on one computer since another computer when switched on has mixed it all up.  Now I do not know what is what.  Better just dont have the sync feature than to have it working so bad!! really. 

My Win8.1 + Android 5 Chromes (all latest) together just make ~20000 bookmarks from 200 bookmarks set!
Is it so hard for people who able to write browser just call strcmp() and NEVER store duplicate bookmarks on the server independently of what device send? 
Why don't check bookmark's time and either overwrite old one on the server or just discard if old one comes from device?
Making even possibility for duplicate bookmark on server side is road to hell.

ache666: could you provide some extra details?
- Chrome version
- Steps leading to duplication (what did you before bookmarks started multiplying?)
- Do you have any extensions for managing bookmarks?
- What kind of bookmark hierarchy did you have before the duplication and have now as a result of the duplication? Did you have multiple folders and bookmarks copied between those folders? Did you get multiple copies of the bookmarks within same folders?
- Are there any errors displayed on chrome://sync-internals page?

- 41.0.2272.89 on PC and 41.0.2272.94 on Android
- I do nothing, even does not add new bookmarks, the bug starts without apparent reason.
- No
- Yes, I have multiply folders and subfolders up to 3rd nesting level. I don't have any duplicates inside the same folder. BTW, due to this bug folders becomes duplicated too, sometimes with full contents, sometimes empty, sometimes with partial contents.
- No errors. According to my account data there are really was so many bookmarks on the server side, so I clear all data on server side and stop syncing bookmarks via Chrome, I use Xmarks extension now without any duplicates.
I try to clear server data previously, but sooner or later I hit this bug again, so I decide to stop bookmarks syncing via Chrome completely.

Me too, for years.  It is a stupid bug, IMHO it should a been fixed LONG ago. 

The delay in fixing makes it look deliberate.  Then I start thinking crazy conspiracy stuff like you trying to avoid anti-trust litigation or something - MS gets cloud Apps, Google rules search engines, Apple Safari gets the browser??  . . . 

FIX this annoying issue!!  

No conspiracy is afoot, but this is a complex cluster of problems. We've fixed many causes of bookmark duplication, and have more improvements coming. Please continue to report these issues in detail, especially if you find reliable repro steps that cause duplication to occur. That is very helpful to the dev team.

To #159: We've considered not allowing more than one bookmark from the same URL/title combination, but from the beginning of Chrome, we've allowed the user to create duplicate entries. Changing this policy would solve some issues (prevent duplication) but might break the systems some other users have set up to manage their content. We're considering something along these lines though.

To #163: while I hardly imagine the case when a user will really need duplicate entries in real life and not create them by mistake, even in that case you can just count the number of duplicating entries in the root or per-folder and refuse to create more of them on the server side.
F.e. if machine A send you 2 dups and machine B send you the same 2 dups (with apparently wrong timestamps or how do you distinguish them as newer, I don't really know) just keep only 2 dups on the server.
This way not helps if machine A sends you say 3 dups while really having 2 of them, but this is needed to be solved on client, not server side.

@#163 & @#164 I have this issue and may have to stop using sync altogether since I no longer have access to turn one PC off that may be part of the issue.

Also, I do try to use duplicate entries and I fear that may be contributing to the problem if a lookup function during sync is searching on Name instead of assigning GUIDs...names aren't unique enough.

Another thing I noticed is that I'll make changes manually in the Bookmarks manager on the right pane and need to refresh the left pane as it won't reflect my hierarchy/folder changes/deletions of duplicates in real time.

For a time I thought Chrome was not allowing me to store a bookmark in more than one location using the UI with the stars and Edit...ctrl+d as well behaves this way, but drag and drop a current URL to the bookmarks bar and you are allowed to duplicate it. Weird.

Here's how to purge all duplicates in the cloud and on all machines. Most users have the problem solved with these steps. Chrome might also have a confusion with time stamps. Make sure all of your devices are set to right time and time zone. Then do the following on your main machine with all other machines not running Chrome:
1. Exit Chrome
2. Rename the bookmarks file(your current bookmarks) to bookmarks.local
   Here's how to find the bookmarks file in Windows:
   http://superuser.com/questions/376366/where-does-Chrome-save-its-bookmarks-on-windows
3. Make sure no other machine is running Chrome(IMPORTANT)
4. Start Chrome
5. Enable bookmarks sync if it's disabled
6. Wait for sync, delete all bookmarks, wait again etc until ALL bookmarks are gone(you'll restore them from .local in next step).
7. Disable bookmarks sync(IMPORTANT)
8. Exit Chrome
9. Copy bookmarks.local(DON'T RENAME-KEEP AS BACKUP) to bookmarks.
10. Start Chrome
11. Remove all duplicates and edit bookmarks until you're satisfied.
12. Enable bookmarks sync. Now all duplicates are definitely gone.
- On all other machines, do the following:
1. You're supposed not to run Chrome, otherwise you might have to start all over again.
2. Rename the bookmarks file(you'll get them from sync in next step).
3. Start Chrome
4. Enable bookmarks sync if it's disabled. Wait until all bookmarks are in. You're done.
- Now be careful not to create the same bookmarks on more than one machine. The safest MO is to create or at least rearrange bookmarks on only one machine and let the changes sync to the others. If you've had a machine turned off for an extended period of time, you should begin with renaming(as backup) the bookmarks file before starting Chrome.

This seems to be with my use of android phone or tablet & chrome then get duplicate bookmarks.
Not all are duplicate but, some are showing up after I use GC on my androids.
Primally most bookmarks are added on one PC & time to time a few from another PC by me.
Will the above help with 5000+ bookmarks...it's a lot to go through to find duplicates.

Years of this bug?

And Google wants us to use its driver-less car?
Even if it works, it will likely only go to destinations which advertise with them.

I think I might have the same issue. Whenever I edit my bookmarks, iOS Chrome seems to restore them, and this ends up in duplicates... It's really annoying...

The same bug here, I have chrome on android 4.4 and laptop. I unsynced all devices, after that I synced laptop then phone and bug came back... 

Add me to the list of disatisfied users with this problem :(

Can't believe it's been literally YEARS for such a basic feature of a browser and it's broken for so long.

Some of the bookmarks I deleted suddenly came back to life so I went to chrome://sync-internals/ and I got the following error:
Unrecoverable error detected at c:\b\build\slave\win_x64\build\src\sync\syncable\directory.cc[632] syncer::syncable::Directory::VacuumAfterSaveChanges : Deleted entry still present

the bookmarks that came back to life went to a wrong folder (not the one they were in before being deleted)

Sync Dump Status.txt 8.1 KB   View   Download

Sync error.txt 183 bytes   View   Download

On this, quite similar, bug report (https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=439110) chrome devs ask us to do that :

If you are still having problems, PLEASE file a new bug.
1. visit crbug.com/new
2. Select Template: "Sync Issue"
3. fill out as much information as possible:
- Be sure to include the chrome version numbers from each of your devices
- If there is a series of actions you can take to recreate the bad behavior, tell us. 
- tell whether chrome://bookmarks is showing a simple list view or a graphical grid view (for each Win/Mac/Linux Chrome that you use).
- tell us if you use any bookmark extensions that also do sync. If yes, try disabling them all and see if you still can produce the bad behavior.

I think it can be useful to do the same for this similar bug.

Maybe this bug can be closed too since this one is fixed (https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=439110) ?

A couple of issues leading to duplication are already fixed. The duplication is less frequent now but there are still occasional cases.

If you still experience the problem please help us by filling a new bug and answering the following questions:
- Chrome version of all Chrome clients that sync the data.
- Any particular steps leading to duplication?
- Do you have any extensions for managing bookmarks?
- What kind of bookmark hierarchy did you have before the duplication and have now as a result of the duplication? Did you have multiple folders and bookmarks copied between those folders? Did you get multiple copies of the bookmarks within same folder?
- Are there any errors displayed on chrome://sync-internals page?
- If you can locate any two duplicating bookmarks in Sync Node Browser on chrome://sync-internals page please copy their details from the browser and let us know whether it is OK to look at transaction history for those bookmarks on the server side.

(No comment was entered for this change.)

This isn't fixed.  My Chrome still does it relentlessly. . I don't even bother trying to clean it up.  All your programmer mumbo jumbo is over my consumer "it should just work" head.  

I use chrome on a PC at work (WIN7), at home(WIN7), on a laptop(WIN10),iphone 5S running IOS9.XX, ipad2 air runningIOS9.XX.

I don't have any 3Party bookmark manager apps.  

   

Bug 304697 could be a dupe of this (it also has no recent reports after  bug 439110  got fixed).

Lets hope that this is finally solved. For people with a vast number of random duplicates like #167 got2r, there's an extension that with the click of a button on the options page, removes all remaining duplicates once the bookmarks have settled down. If necessary, you can stabilize the bookmarks first as I described at #166 on Apr 19, 2015.
1. First be warned: the SuperSorter's SORTING feature is probably NOT something you want to use. First of all it ALWAYS SORTS ALL bookmarks AND folders in ALL folders, not just the once in the current bookmarks folder. Secondly, it does NOT sort non-alphabetic(a-z) characters the way Chrome's built-in sort does, creating a royal mess if you're used to Chrome's sorting scheme.
2. Then install SuperSorter from https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/supersorter/hjebfgojnlefhdgmomncgjglmdckngij?utm_source=chrome-app-launcher-info-dialog
3. Now go to town on those pesky duplicates. There's a support site at
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/supersorter

Solved. Isn't this an issue on Google Servers? I just found this link so I haven't taken steps suggested here. I have now over 40000 bookmarks. Why can't I just give permission to Google to go in to my data and remove all duplicates? I am not a computer wiz nor do I wish to do 20 steps to solve this. I have several devices as well. I think I saw the comment "Use one machine to manage bookmarks" well then what is sync for? I am glad I found this link but to solve this looks like a tremendous effort on my part and no guarantee the problem is gone when I am done. Wow we're talking about bookmarks.

I haven't done anything to bookmarks and today 23 hours later I am now at 73040 bookmarks when I check in my Chrome>Settings>Google Dashboard. Not what I would call pesky, right? Whose got the answer to fix this easily and what is it? Thanks.

i have the same problem, thousands of the same bookmarks rendering chrome useless