As you discovered, you can export/import, but I'm not sure that's any more efficient than using Firefox's bookmarks organizer. Press Ctrl+Shift+b to open the "Library" dialog and then click Bookmarks Menu in the left pane. You can create new folders under the Bookmarks Menu and drag and drop your bookmarks into them. Use the search box to filter the list by words in the title or URL. Hopefully that will make it go more quickly.

Windows Internet Explorer (and its' clones) is the only browser to store Favorites/Bookmarks in "Windows Explorer" folders, all other browsers have their own Bookmarks database system for storage.

As far as that "5 foot tall column", have you tried the "Library" window?? (as jscher2000 mentioned)
{Ctrl + Shft + B} - that display can be Maximized.

Or open the Bookmarks Sidebar {Ctrl + B}, and do a drag'n'drop to move bookmarks around - that divider bar can be dragged to the right to make the sidebar wider, like 30% of the width of the browser window (at least 30% for me at 1280 x 768 screen resolution).

js, thanks, the library feature definitely has some potential, but there problems. 1- when I drag an item to a folder that folder expands, and everything gets to look different, and any item I had planned to subsequently move I now first have to go collapse that folder and go search for that other item 2- seems random which folder it drops an item down into as I drag the item toward the folder I want to drop it in. yes I hold onto the mouse button good. 3- any way to move several at once? I tried ctrl-click on the items and they got highlit, but i couldn't get them to move to the right place, they just disappeared. Then I put the one in the search menu, and it brought it up, but didn't say which folder it was in, and I forgot what the other item was that I moved together with it so that other item I will never find. any way to have a 'path' show when you do a search?

if only the folders didn't expand whem you move something to them that would at least help a little

other question - any way to change the structure? when I click on 'all bookmarks'I dont get asll bookmarks, i get a folder with bookmarks toolbar, bookmarks menu, and unsorted bookmarks. When I click on unsorted bookmarks, nothing happens, such as that perhaps it would open from clicking on it, so what's the all bookmarks for other thasn confusion? I just don't understand how this is put together

It is easier to use cut and paste in the Bookmarks Manager (Library; Bookmarks > Show All Bookmarks).
You can select multiple items with Shift and cursor Down or hold down the Ctrl key and click items with the mouse.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Sorting_and_rearranging_bookmarks_-_Firefox
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Sorting+bookmarks

Unsorted bookmarks are created when you click the star icon once, but don't click it again to put the bookmark into a folder immediately. Personally I don't leave them there because then I forget about them.

Regarding folders expanding, I think there is a delay on this. If you don't hover over any one folder and just release on it quickly, it shouldn't expand. This will drop the bookmark at the bottom of the list in that folder.

I have another idea: Make myself a Windows folder on the desktop, and move everything there, and simply not bother with the bookmarks feature itself other than to occasionally go in and move a group of new bookmarks over to the windows folder. However, it seems that folders within the bookmarks won't copy and paste in the windows folder at all, and selecting all doesnt work either.

any suggestions for the best ways to migrate it all so that it copies well?

I just realized that this is how i have been doing it for a while - anything I actually need I have already been copying to various windows folders, but I have hundreds of unsorted or poorly sorted, and therefore useless bookmarked urls uin the bookmarks

See also:

• Plain old favorites: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/plainoldfavorites/

To get your Firefox bookmarks onto disk as IE-style .url shortcuts, you need to go through the two step process of exporting your Firefox bookmarks to an HTML file, and then having IE import that file. The first step is covered in this article: Export Firefox bookmarks to an HTML file to back up or transfer bookmarks.

Export went well, but it appears that the import into IE is quite different in my current windows 7 version. It doesn't even have a toolbar. I love cor-el's suggestion for plai old favorites - that's the ticket, not a bit of doubt, once I can get the bookmarks/favorites file imported thanks, hope someone knows how to import them. really appreciate the help

got everything figured out! Thank you very much everyone! it works like a charm that good old favorites