I have around 300 folders under my PROJECTS/2026 folder (and we’re only in March!) combining repos I clone just for exploration, quick demos and working folders. And it happens a lot to me that I don’t remember the exact name of the current folder names I’m working on.
What I find super useful in different environments (Obsidian, Slack…) is the ability to add bookmarks to specific elements. I use this as a way to highlight temporarily some elements, as a way to say “let’s give this some focus until further notice”
I was missing a similar feature in my terminal so I vibe coded a small script to fix it: zsh-folder-bookmarks. Bookmark any folder, list bookmarks by path, jump to them instantly. Works with zsh and bash — use it with any plugin manager or just source it directly.
Table of Contents
The Commands
There are five commands — bm, bml, bmg, and bmr. Here’s a quick overview:
# Bookmark current folder
bm
# Bookmark a specific path
bm ~/Projects/my-app
# List all bookmarks
bml
# List direct children of current folder
bml .
# List all bookmarks under current folder (recursive)
bml . -r
# Jump to a bookmark — direct children of current folder
bmg
# Jump to a bookmark — all under current folder
bmg -r
# Jump to a bookmark — all bookmarks globally
bmg -g
# Remove current folder's bookmark
bmrbm always resolves to an absolute path, so bm . and bm ~/Projects/my-app both store the full path — no relative path surprises.
💡 bmg uses fzf for fuzzy selection if you have it installed. Without it, it falls back to a numbered list. Either way it works — but fzf makes it significantly nicer.
Listing Bookmarks by Path
This is the part I think about most. When you pass a path to bml, it only shows direct children of that path by default. So if your bookmarks include:
/Users/you/Projects/2026/app-one
/Users/you/Projects/2026/app-two
/Users/you/Projects/2026/clients/acmeRunning bml . from inside 2026/ gives you app-one and app-two — not clients/acme, because that’s one level deeper. Add -r if you want everything under the current folder:
bml . # app-one, app-two only
bml . -r # app-one, app-two, clients/acmeInstallation
💡 The plugin works with both zsh and bash. Source it in ~/.zshrc, ~/.bashrc, or load it through any plugin manager that supports sourcing files.
Manual (no plugin manager)
Clone the repo anywhere you keep your shell plugins:
git clone https://github.com/juanmaguitar/zsh-folder-bookmarks \
~/.zsh/zsh-folder-bookmarksAdd this to your ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc:
source ~/.zsh/zsh-folder-bookmarks/zsh-folder-bookmarks.plugin.zshReload your shell:
source ~/.zshrc # or ~/.bashrcOh My Zsh
Clone into the custom plugins folder:
git clone https://github.com/juanmaguitar/zsh-folder-bookmarks \
${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-folder-bookmarksThen add zsh-folder-bookmarks to your plugins list in ~/.zshrc:
plugins=(... zsh-folder-bookmarks)Filtering and Navigation
bml outputs plain text — one path per line. That means you can pipe it straight into grep to filter:
bml . | grep cohortAnd you can jump straight into a filtered result using $() command substitution:
cd $(bml . | grep cohort)⚠️ Use $() for command substitution, not ${}. The curly brace syntax is for variable expansion — it’ll throw a bad substitution error if you mix them up.
If your filter always returns a unique match, that’s all you need. For everything else, use bmg — it opens an interactive picker scoped to the current folder. Add -r to include subfolders, or -g to pick from all your bookmarks:
bmg # current folder only
bmg -r # all under current folder
bmg -g # all bookmarks globallyThe plugin is on GitHub at juanmaguitar/zsh-folder-bookmarks. It’s a single file — clone it, source it, done.
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