Explorer Bookmarks

Explorer Bookmarks is a tool that saves and restores Windows File Explorer windows.

Building

Prerequisites

• Rust toolchain (https://rustup.rs/)
• For cross-compilation to Windows: rustup target add x86_64-pc-windows-gnu and cargo-zigbuild

Build Commands

# Release build for Windows (cross-compilation from Linux)
cargo zigbuild --target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu

# Or on Windows directly
cargo build --release

The compiled binary will be at target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/release/explorer-bookmarks.exe (cross-compilation) or target/release/explorer-bookmarks.exe (on Windows).

Usage

See the help output for full usage:

explorer-bookmarks --help

Basic Operations

# Save current Explorer windows
explorer-bookmarks

# Restore from a specific file
explorer-bookmarks path\to\bookmarks.txt

# Run as scheduled task (restores last saved bookmarks)
explorer-bookmarks task

Administrative Operations

These require running as Administrator:

# Install integration (right-click menu + scheduled task)
$ENV:EB_ACTION="install"; explorer-bookmarks

# Uninstall integration
$ENV:EB_ACTION="uninstall"; explorer-bookmarks

# Reinstall integration
$ENV:EB_ACTION="reinstall"; explorer-bookmarks

Environment Variables

Variable	Description	Default
EB_ACTION	Administrative action: install, uninstall, reinstall, dev, help	-
EB_INSTALL_PATH	Installation path for the executable	C:\ProgramData\TacticalRMM\Explorer-Bookmarks.exe
EB_SAVE_DIR	Directory for bookmark files	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Explorer-Bookmarks
EB_SAVE_FILENAME_PREFIX	Prefix for bookmark filenames	ExplorerBookmarks
EB_SAVE_MAX_NUM_FILES	Maximum bookmark files to keep (1-1000)	50
EB_RESTORE_MAX_FILE_SIZE	Maximum file size to restore in bytes (1-16384)	4096
EB_RESTORE_MAX_WINDOWS	Maximum windows to restore (1-100)	50
EB_RESTORE_DELAY_SECONDS	Delay between opening windows (0-10)	0.5
EB_LOG_LEVEL	Log level: error, warn, info, debug, trace	warn
RUST_LOG	Alternative log level setting	-

Features

• Save bookmarks: Captures all open File Explorer window paths
• Restore bookmarks: Opens Explorer windows from a saved bookmark file
• Deduplication: Automatically removes duplicate consecutive saves
• File rotation: Keeps only the configured maximum number of bookmark files
• Right-click integration: Adds "Restore my Explorer Bookmarks" to .txt file context menu
• Scheduled task: Automatically restores bookmarks at login
• Safety limits: Configurable limits on file size and window count to prevent accidental misuse
• Tab support: Saves and restores multiple tabs within a single File Explorer window on Windows 11 22H2 and later. Falls back to single-window behavior on older versions.

License

MIT