Buku

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 private, portable and merge-able database. Hence, Buku (after my son's nickname).

buku can handle piped input, which lets you combine it with xsel (on Linux) and add bookmarks from anywhere without touching the terminal.

Ref: buku & xsel: add selected or copied URL as bookmark

Got some suggestions? with us.

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

Copyright (C) 2015-2016 Arun Prakash Jana.

Features

• Add, tag, comment on, search, update, remove bookmarks
• Merge-able portable database, to sync between systems
• Import/export bookmarks HTML (Firefox, Google Chrome, IE compatible)
• Fetch page title from web (default), refresh all titles in a go
• Open search results directly in browser
• Manual password protection using AES256 encryption
• Tab-completion scripts (Bash, Fish, Zsh), man page with examples
• Several options for power users (see help or man page)
• Fast and clean interface
• Minimal dependencies

Table of Contents

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

Installation

Dependencies

buku requires Python 3.3 or later.

Package dependencies:

• Encryption: cryptography
• Import bookmarks: Beautiful Soup

Run:

$ sudo pip3 install cryptography beautifulsoup4

or on Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get install python3-cryptography python3-bs4

Installing from this repository

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 (/usr/local):

$ sudo make install

To remove, run:

$ sudo make uninstall

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

Running as a standalone utility

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

$ ./buku

Shell completion

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.

Installing with a package manager

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

Debian package

If you are on a Debian (including Ubuntu) based system visit the latest stable release and download the.debpackage. To install, run:

$ sudo dpkg -i buku-$version-all.deb

Please substitute $version with the appropriate package version.

Usage

Cmdline options

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

usage: buku [OPTIONS] [KEYWORD [KEYWORD ...]]

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

general options:
  -a, --add URL [tags ...]
                       bookmark URL with comma-separated tags
  -u, --update [N]     update fields of bookmark at DB index N
                       refresh all titles, if no arguments
                       refresh title of bookmark at N, if only
                       N is specified without any edit options
  -d, --delete [...]   delete bookmarks. Valid inputs: either
                       a hyphenated single range (100-200),
                       OR space-separated indices (100 15 200)
                       delete all bookmarks, if no arguments
  -h, --help           show this information and exit

edit options:
  --url keyword        specify url, works with -u only
  --tag [+] [...]      set comma-separated tags, works with -a, -u
                       clears tags, if no arguments
                       appends tags, if preceded by '+'
  -t, --title [...]    manually set title, works with -a, -u
                       if no arguments:
                       -a: do not set title, -u: clear title
  -c, --comment [...]  description of the bookmark, works with
                       -a, -u; clears comment, if no arguments

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 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 everywhere
                       delete oldtag, if no newtag
  -j, --json           Json formatted output for -p, -s, -S, --st
  -e, --export file    export bookmarks to Firefox format html
  -i, --import file    import bookmarks from html file; Firefox,
                       Google Chrome and IE formats supported
  -m, --merge file     merge bookmarks from another buku database
  --noprompt           do not show the prompt, run and exit
  -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
  double Enter         exit buku

Operational notes

• 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, buku stored 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 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.
• Tags:
  • Comma (,) is the tag delimiter in DB. Any tag cannot have comma(s) in it. Tags are filtered (for unique tags) and sorted.
• Update operation:
  • If --title, --tag or --comment is passed without argument, clear the corresponding field from DB.
  • If --url is passed (and --title is omitted), update the title from web using the URL.
  • If index number is passed without any other options (--url, --title, --tag and --comment), read the URL from DB and update title from web.
• Delete operation:
  • When a record is deleted, the last record is moved to the index.
  • Delete doesn't work with range and indices provided together as arguments. It's an intentional decision to avoid extra sorting, in-range checks and to keep the auto-DB compaction functionality intact. On the same lines, indices are deleted in descending order.
• 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 in bold within [] after the URL.
• 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.

Examples

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 https://tuxdiary.com linux news, open source -c Informative website on Linux and open source
    Title: [TuxDiary – Linux, open source, command-line, leisure.]
    Added at index 336
   
    336. https://tuxdiary.com
    > TuxDiary – Linux, open source, command-line, leisure.
    + Informative website on Linux and open source
    # linux news,open source
   

where, >: title, +: comment, #: tags 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, tags and comments, fetch title from the web:

    $ buku -u 15012014 --url http://tuxdiary.com/ --tag linux news, open source, magazine -c site for Linux utilities
   

5. Fetch and update only title for bookmark at 15012014:

    $ buku -u 15012014
   

6. Update only comment for bookmark at 15012014:

    $ buku -u 15012014 -c this is a new comment
   

Applies to --url, --title and --tag too. 7. Import bookmarks:

    $ buku -i bookmarks.html

HTML exports from Firefox, Google Chrome and IE are supported. 8. Delete only comment for bookmark at 15012014:

    $ buku -u 15012014 -c

Applies to --title and --tag too. URL cannot be deleted without deleting the bookmark. 9. Update or refresh full DB with page titles from the web:

    $ buku -u

This operation does not modify the indexes, URLs, tags or comments. Only title is refreshed if fetched title is non-empty. 10. 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. 11. Delete all bookmarks:

    $ buku -d

12. Delete a range or list of bookmarks:

    $ buku -d 100-200     // delete bookmarks from index 100 to 200
    $ buku 100 15 200     // delete bookmarks at indices 100, 15 and 200
    

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

    $ buku -s kernel debugging
    

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

    $ buku -S kernel debugging
    

15. 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. 16. List all unique tags alphabetically:

    $ buku --st

17. 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. 18. Show details of bookmark at index 15012014:

    $ buku -p 15012014

19. Show all bookmarks with real index from database:

    $ buku -p
    $ buku -p | more
    

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

    $ buku -r 'old tag' new tag
    

21. Delete tag 'old tag' from DB:

    $ buku -r 'old tag'
    

22. Append tags 'tag 1', 'tag 2' to existing tags of bookmark at index 15012014:

    $ buku -u 15012014 --tag + tag 1, tag 2
    

23. Open URL at index 15012014 in browser:

    $ buku -o 15012014
    

24. To list bookmarks with no title or tags for bookkeeping:

    $ buku -S blank
    

25. More help:

    $ buku
    $ man buku
    

Contributions

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

Mentions

• One Thing Well

Developers

Arun Prakash Jana

Special thanks to the community for valuable suggestions and ideas.