buku --ai finds no bookmarks on Chrome 150+, even when Chrome has many bookmarks synced to the account

[restagner]

Description

buku --ai (auto-import from browsers) finds no bookmarks on Chrome 150+, even when Chrome has many bookmarks synced to the account.

Root Cause

Starting with Chrome 146, Google phased out the legacy plaintext Bookmarks file in favor of encrypted bookmark storage:

Version	Change
Chrome 146	AccountBookmarks file introduced when "Save in Account" is enabled. Bookmarks still maintained.
Chrome 146–149	Bookmarks Encryption flag (Stages 1→2): dual writes to both Bookmarks and encrypted store.
Chrome 150	Stage 3 activates for synced users: legacy Bookmarks file is no longer written. Only AccountBookmarks (JSON, plaintext — appears to be a subset) and EncryptedAccountBookmarks (binary, encrypted via os_crypt) remain.

The official Chrome 150 release notes and developer blog do not mention this change — it was a silent security migration using the same os_crypt mechanism Chrome already applies to saved passwords.

Current behavior

buku --ai looks for:

• ~/.config/google-chrome/Default/Bookmarks (Linux)
• ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Bookmarks (macOS)
• %LOCALAPPDATA%/Google/Chrome/User Data/Default/Bookmarks (Windows)

On Chrome 150+ these files no longer exist for synced users. The actual bookmark data is in AccountBookmarks (readable JSON, but only ~21 of the full set) and EncryptedAccountBookmarks (binary, encrypted).

Expected behavior

buku --ai should detect and read from the new AccountBookmarks file (and potentially the encrypted file) on Chrome 146+, with graceful fallback to the legacy Bookmarks path for older Chrome versions.

Workaround

Users can export bookmarks from Chrome as HTML (chrome://bookmarks/ → Export) and import via buku -i <file.html>.

Environment

• buku 5.1
• Chrome 150.0.7871.46 (Linux)
• Ubuntu 24.04

References

• Chrome 146+ bookmarks not found — AccountBookmarks file not supported [browser-bookmarks & google-chrome] raycast/extensions#26989 — "Chrome 146+ bookmarks not found — AccountBookmarks file not..."
• https://www.digitalcitizen.life/chrome-tests-bookmark-encryption-that-makes-your-bookmarks-file-disappear/ — details the 3-stage encryption rollout
• https://www.techjunkie.com/what-does-google-chromes-new-bookmark-encryption-mean-for-privacy/ — confirms os_crypt usage
• https://issues.chromium.org/issues/435317726 — Chromium tracker: "encrypt bookmarks with os_crypt"