buku is a powerful cmdline bookmark management utility written in Python3 and SQLite3. When I started writing it, I couldn't find a flexible cmdline solution with a portable database. Hence, Buku (after my son's nickname).

You can add bookmarks to buku with tags and page title fetched from the web, search, update and remove bookmarks. You can open the URLs from search results directly in the browser. Encryption is supported, optionally with custom number of hash passes for key generation.

buku can also handle piped input, which lets you combine it with xsel (on Linux) and use a shortcut to add selected or copied text as bookmark without touching the terminal. Ref: buku & xsel: add selected or copied URL as bookmark

Find buku useful? If you would like to donate, visit the page.

Copyright (C) 2015-2016 Arun Prakash Jana.

• Add, tag, search, update, remove bookmarks
• Fetch page title from the web (default) or add a custom page title manually
• Add comments (description) to bookmarks
• Open search results in browser
• Manual password protection using AES256 encryption
• Handle piped input (combine with xsel and add bookmarks directly from browser)
• Modify or delete tags, list all unique tags alphabetically
• Refresh all bookmarks online
• Tab-completion scripts for Bash, Fish and Zsh
• Man page with examples
• Several options for power users (see help or man page)
• Fast and clean interface
• Minimal dependencies

• Installation
  • Dependencies
  • Installing from this repository
  • Running as a standalone utility
  • Shell completion
  • Installing with a package manager
• Usage
  • Cmdline options
  • Operational notes
• Examples
  • Bookkeeping
• Contributions
• Developers

buku requires Python 3.x to work.

For optional encryption support, install PyCrypto module. Run:

$ sudo pip3 install pycrypto

or on Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get install python3-crypto

If you have git installed, run:

$ git clone https://github.com/jarun/buku/

or download the latest stable release or development version.

Install to default location:

$ sudo make install

or, a custom location (PREFIX):

$ PREFIX=/path/to/prefix make install

To remove, run:

$ sudo make uninstall

or, if you have installed to a custom location (PREFIX):

$ PREFIX=/path/to/prefix make uninstall

You may need to use sudo with PREFIX depending on your permissions on destination directory.

buku is a standalone utility. From the containing directory, run:

$ ./buku

Shell completion scripts for Bash, Fish and Zsh can be found in respective subdirectories of auto-completion/. Please refer to your shell's manual for installation instructions.

buku is also available on

• AUR for Arch Linux
• Void Linux repos ( $ sudo xbps-install -S buku )
• Homebrew for OS X, or its Linux fork, Linuxbrew

NOTE: If you are using buku v1.9 or below please refer to the installed man page or program help.

usage: buku [-a URL [tags ...]] [-u [N [URL tags ...]]]
            [-t [...]] [-c [...]] [-d [N]] [-h]
            [-s keyword [...]] [-S keyword [...]] [--st [...]]
            [-k [N]] [-l [N]] [-p [N]] [-f N]
            [-r oldtag [newtag ...]] [-j] [-o N] [-z]

A private command-line bookmark manager. Your mini web!

general options:
  -a, --add URL [tags ...]
                       bookmark URL with comma separated tags
  -u, --update [N [URL tags ...]]
                       update fields of bookmark at DB index N
                       refresh all titles, if no arguments
                       if URL omitted and -t is unused, update
                       title of bookmark at index N from web
  -t, --title [...]    manually set title, works with -a, -u
                       do not set title, if no arguments
  -c, --comment [...]  description of the bookmark, works with
                       -a, -u; clears comment, if no arguments
  -d, --delete [N]     delete bookmark at DB index N
                       delete all bookmarks, if no arguments
  -h, --help           show this information

search options:
  -s, --sany keyword [...]
                       search bookmarks for ANY matching keyword
  -S, --sall keyword [...]
                       search bookmarks with ALL keywords
                       special keyword -
                       "blank": list entries with empty title/tag
  --st, --stag [...]   search bookmarks by tag
                       list all tags alphabetically, if no arguments

encryption options:
  -l, --lock [N]       encrypt DB file with N (> 0, default 8)
                       hash iterations to generate key
  -k, --unlock [N]     decrypt DB file with N (> 0, default 8)
                       hash iterations to generate key

power toys:
  -p, --print [N]      show details of bookmark at DB index N
                       show all bookmarks, if no arguments
  -f, --format N       modify -p output
                       N=1: show only URL, N=2: show URL and tag
  -r, --replace oldtag [newtag ...]
                       replace oldtag with newtag in all bookmarks
                       delete oldtag, if no newtag
  -j, --json           Json formatted output, for -p, -s, -S, --st
  -o, --open N         open bookmark at DB index N in web browser
  -z, --debug          show debug information and additional logs

prompt keys:
  1-N                  open the Nth search result in web browser
  Enter                exit buku

• The SQLite3 database file is stored in:
  • $XDG_DATA_HOME/buku/bookmarks.db, if XDG_DATA_HOME is defined (first preference) or
  • $HOME/.local/share/buku/bookmarks.db, if HOME is defined (second preference) or
  • the current directory.
• Before version 1.9, bukustored its database in $HOME/.cache/buku/bookmarks.db. If the file exists, buku automatically moves it to new location.
• It's advisable to copy URLs directly from the browser address bar, i.e., along with the leading http:// or https:// token. buku looks up title data (found within <title></title> tags of HTML) from the web ONLY for fully-formed HTTP(S) URLs.
• If the URL contains characters like ;, & or brackets they may be interpreted specially by the shell. To avoid it, add the URL within single or double ('/") quotes.
• URLs are unique in DB. The same URL cannot be added twice. You can update tags and re-fetch title data.
• Search works in mysterious ways:
  • Case-insensitive.
  • Substrings match (match matches rematched) for URL, title and tags.
  • -s : match any of the keywords in URL, title or tags.
  • -S : match all the keywords in URL, title or tags.
  • --st : search bookmarks by tag, or show all tags alphabetically.
  • You can search bookmarks by tag (see examples).
  • Search results are indexed serially. This index is different from actual database index of a bookmark record which is shown within [] after the URL.
• Auto DB compaction: when a record is deleted, the last record is moved to the index.
• Encryption is optional and manual. AES256 algorithm is used. If you choose to use encryption, the database file should be unlocked (-k) before using buku and locked (-l) afterwards. Between these 2 operations, the database file lies unencrypted on the disk, and NOT in memory. Also, note that the database file is unencrypted on creation.

1. Add a bookmark with tags linux news and open source, comment Informative website on Linux and open source, fetch page title from the web:

    $ buku -a http://tuxdiary.com linux news, open source -c Informative website on Linux and open source
    Title: [TuxDiary | Linux, open source and a pinch of leisure.]
    Added at index 15012014
   

2. Add a bookmark with tags linux news and open source & custom title Linux magazine:

    $ buku -a http://tuxdiary.com linux news, open source -t 'Linux magazine'
    Added at index 15012014
   

Note that URL must precede tags. 3. Add a bookmark without a title (works for update too):

    $ buku -a http://tuxdiary.com linux news, open source -t

4. Update existing bookmark at index 15012014 with new URL and tags, fetch title from the web:

    $ buku -u 15012014 http://tuxdiary.com/ linux news, open source, magazine
    Title: [TuxDiary | Linux, open source and a pinch of leisure.]
    Updated index 15012014
   

Tags are updated too. Original tags are removed. 5. Update or refresh full DB with page titles from the web:

    $ buku -u

This operation does not modify the indexes, URLs or tags. Only title is refreshed if fetched title is non-empty. 6. Delete bookmark at index 15012014:

    $ buku -d 15012014
    Index 15012020 moved to 15012014

The last index is moved to the deleted index to keep the DB compact. 7. Delete all bookmarks:

    $ buku -d

8. Search bookmarks for ANY of the keywords kernel and debugging in URL, title or tags:

    $ buku -s kernel debugging
   

9. Search bookmarks with ALL the keywords kernel and debugging in URL, title or tags:

    $ buku -S kernel debugging
   

10. Search bookmarks with tag general kernel concepts:

    $ buku --st general kernel concepts
    

Note the commas (,) before and after the tag. Comma is the tag delimiter in DB. 11. List all unique tags alphabetically:

    $ buku --st

12. Encrypt or decrypt DB with custom number of iterations (15) to generate key:

    $ buku -l 15
    $ buku -k 15
    

The same number of iterations must be used for one lock & unlock instance. Default is 8. 13. Show details of bookmark at index 15012014:

    $ buku -p 15012014

14. Show all bookmarks with real index from database:

    $ buku -p
    $ buku -p | more
    

15. Replace tag 'old tag' with 'new tag':

    $ buku -r 'old tag' new tag
    

16. Delete tag 'old tag' from DB:

    $ buku -r 'old tag'
    

17. Open URL at index 15012014 in browser:

    $ buku -o 15012014
    

18. More help:

    $ buku
    $ man buku
    

1. To list bookmarks with no title or tags:

    $ buku -S blank
   

Use the -u option to add title or tags to those entries, if you want to. 2. buku doesn't have any import feature of its own. To import URLs in bulk, create a script with URLs and tags like the following (check TIP below):

    #!/bin/bash
    buku -a https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/ networking, device drivers
    buku -a https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ece390/books/artofasm/ArtofAsm.html assembly
    buku -a http://www.tittbit.in/
    buku -a http://www.mikroe.com/chapters/view/65/ electronics
    buku -a "http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb470206(v=vs.85).aspx" file systems
    buku -a http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-linuxboot/index.html boot process

Make the script executable and run to batch add bookmarks. 3. To update selected URLs (refresh) along with your tags, first get the unformatted selective output with URL and tags:

    $ buku -p -f 2 | tee myurls

Remove the lines you don't need. Add buku -u in front of all the other lines (check TIP below). Should look like:

    #!/bin/bash
    buku -u 50 https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/ networking, device drivers
    buku -u 51 https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ece390/books/artofasm/ArtofAsm.html assembly
    buku -u 52 http://www.tittbit.in/
    buku -u 53 http://www.mikroe.com/chapters/view/65/ electronics
    buku -u 54 "http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb470206(v=vs.85).aspx" file systems
    buku -u 55 http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-linuxboot/index.html boot process

Run the script:

    $ chmod +x myurls
    $ ./myurls

####TIP

Add the same text at the beginning of multiple lines:

vim

• Press Ctrl-v to select the first column of text in the lines you want to change (visual mode).
• Press Shift-i and type the text you want to insert.
• Hit Esc, wait 1 second and the inserted text will appear on every line.

sed

$ sed -i 's/^/buku -u /' filename

Pull requests are welcome. Please visit #14 for a list of TODOs.

Arun Prakash Jana

Special thanks to the community for valuable suggestions and ideas.