Managing Your Favorite Websites in Internet Explorer

What are Favorites?

Has anyone ever told you to "bookmark" a web page? Bookmarking web pages means that you make an electronic reference to a web page that makes it easy for you to visit the page again. In Internet Explorer, bookmarks are called "favorites." At the top of your Internet Explorer window, you may have noticed a Favorites menu. As you bookmark web pages, they appear in your Favorites menu and you simply need to select the page from the menu to visit it again.

Adding a Favorite Website

When you find a web page you think you may want to visit again, add it to your list of favorites.

Click on the Favorites menu and select Add to Favorites. The Add Favorite window appears.

Tip

Don't see the Menu Bar? Right-click in the area below the URL and to the right of your most recent tab and select Menu Bar to display it.

In the Add Favorite window, the name of the page you are bookmarking appears in the Name field, which is automatically populated by the code that created the page. If you want to rename the bookmark, highlight the text in the Name field, delete it, and enter a new name.
Click OK to add the page to your list of favorites. Now, if you click on the Favorites menu, you’ll see the page listed at the bottom of your Favorites menu. You just have to select that page from the menu to visit it again.

Organizing Favorites

If you add many pages to your list of favorites, the list can easily get out of control and it becomes difficult for you to find a page in your list. You can organize your list to make it easier to manage with a few simple steps.

Reorder Your Favorites

You can reorder your favorites so that similar ones are ordered consecutively in your list of favorites.

Go to the Favorites menu and select Organize Favorites. The Organize Favorites window appears.
Click on the page you want to move to a new location in the list and while holding down the left mouse button, drag it to the new location and release the mouse button. As you are dragging the item, a black bar shows you where the page will be placed in the list if you release the mouse button.

Put Your Favorites in Folders

Go to the Favorites menu and select Organize Favorites. The Organize Favorites window appears.
Click the Create Folder button. A new folder appears at the bottom of your favorites list. The highlighted "New Folder" text means that you can type a new name for the folder. Type a new name for the folder.

When you are finished, close the Organize Favorites window.
Click on the Favorites menu again and select the name of the folder you created. You’ll see a forward arrow to the far right of the folder name indicating that the folder expands. When you select the folder, you’ll see a submenu appear to the right of the folder name, showing the pages you have moved to that folder. In the example below, two items have been placed in the Chemistry 101 folder.

Tip

Once you have created folders, you can add new favorites directly into folders. When you’ve found a new web page you want to add to your list of favorites, go to Favorites > Add to Favorites. Click the menu next to Create in so that your favorites folders appear. Click on the folder you want to save the new favorite in and click Add.

Deleting Favorites

There may be times when you are no longer interested in saving a favorite, or the web page becomes obsolete so it no longer makes sense to keep it as a favorite. In these cases, you can delete web pages from your list of favorites.

Go to the Favorites menu and select Organize Favorites. The Organize Favorites window appears.
Click on the name of the web page you want to delete.
Click the Delete button.

Tip

You can also delete a favorite by selecting the Favorites menu and right clicking on the item you wish to delete. A menu pops up. Select Delete from the menu.

Maintained by itweb@wpi.edu
Last modified: Aug 17, 2009, 11:18 EDT