How to Continue Syncing Bookmarks with Xmarks on Your Own Server [Video]

Xmarks—our favorite bookmark-syncing tool—closes its doors in January 2011. That's horrible news for millions of loyal Xmarks users, but the world doesn't have to end. Here's how to continue using Xmarks by hosting your bookmarks on your own server.

The Bad News

Before we get started, here's the bad news: Currently, only the Firefox version of Xmarks supports hosting bookmarks on your own server. That means that one of the primary reasons many of us around Lifehacker HQ use Xmarks—to sync bookmarks across different browsers like Chrome and Firefox—still isn't available. (We hear that Xmarks may consider open-sourcing their extensions, which means this method could work across browser platforms in the future; for now, though, it's Firefox only.)

You've still got a few reasons why you might want to host and sync your Xmarks bookmarks yourself. For one, you get absolute control over your bookmarks—always nice for the tin-foil hat crowd. It also means you can continue using the bookmark syncing tools you're already comfortable and familiar with. For some, that's reason enough. If not, you may want to consider switching to the built-in syncing tools that ship with your browser of choice—Xmarks highlights each here.

You can watch the whole step-by-step setup process in the video above, or go the text-and-image route below.

What You'll NeedA web host or server that allows you to set up a WebDAV directoryFirefox with the most recent version of Xmarks installed.Roughly five to ten minutesStep One: Set Up a WebDAV Directory on Your Server

The steps here will vary depending on the web host you're using. On the hosting provider I'm using, DreamHost, you log into your DreamHost panel and navigate to the Htaccess/WebDAV section, under Goodies.

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