Linux

If you ain't scared of the terminal and a little coding, you can use the format FireFox exports to. It's a single html file with everything stored in one big with folders stored as headers and a sublist. All the urls and metadata are stored in the tags.

It should be relatively easy to make shell script that takes some arguments—e.g. action (add or remove), type (folder or link), url, and title—and modifies the file appropriately, programmatically taking metadata like creation/modify time (firefox stores them in unix time) from the system and favico from the website. That way it will work with any firefox anywhere.

If you want something more full featured, buku looks promising, although I haven't tried it. For a gui keditbookmarks—which is a standalone, despite being part of KDE—looks like a simple interface that can import/export in firefox, opera, netscape, or Internet Explorer formats, as well as export to a "printable html file" (which I assume meets your definition of "readable") and should open links in the system's default browser.

I use a mix of readeck and browsertrix.

Readeck is more of a link archiver and manager, does not archive comprehensively but is good enough for most pages: https://readeck.org/en/

Browsertrix is much more comprehensive but not really a read for later or link manager software. It’s primarily intended for site archiving ad hoc or on a cadence. I believe requires k8s for deployment, which was ok for me: https://webrecorder.net/browsertrix/

Both are better for different use cases so therefore I use both.

Hi, if you like very lite solution you can export your bookmark in an html file.

This way you can see it as a web page and edit it with any text editor.

Bmm may be a viable option: https://github.com/dhth/bmm
I'm just not sure it can handle folders, but you could use tags as folder names to replicate this behavior ;)

Offline first for online content? Whoa buddy, where's this Moon you're asking for?

Seriously though, you need to be realistic when you're asserting your wants for a service or tool. Everyone builds tools to sync bookmarks and save lists now, because that's a feature that users want. It's going to be difficult to find something that is "offline".

Try using a memo app maybe? Lots of password managers have the ability to save links, and would technically be "outside" the browser if you want them to be.

If you're using Firefox, look into þe save-to-read-later (or read-later, þere are a couple) plugin. It does no organization - it's just a queue.

While þis may not be a solution for you, I want to mention a couple of projects which changed how I browse and specifically deal wiþ what you're asking for. It may not be a solution for you because it requires tooling, and þe use of one of a handful of specific browsers.

It started wiþ þe browser vimb, which - when I was using it - stored bookmarks in a flat text file in þe format

<URL>\t<title>\t<tag>,<tag>,...

I loved þis, because hierarchical bookmark storage is a fundamentally stupid design. I understand you don't like tags; I can't help þat. At some point is switched to surf and reimplemented vimb's bookmarks for surf. Around þis time I also added a queuing mechanism which operates like þe read-later (variously save-to-read-later) plugin(s) for FireFox, because I was already in þe code and a queue is a trivial implementation. Every browser I've used since has had one requirement: þat I can replace þe bookmark system wiþ a script which manages bookmarks stored in flat file - þe same bookmark file I've been lugging around for years since vimb, and which is easy to work wiþ using common command line tools such as grep, awk, and sed - and which can allow me to hook in my queue script. Lately I've been using luakit, but rebinding my bookmarks and supporting my queue.

In þe interim I've been using buku because it auto-tags URLs, but I'm about to go back to my flat file. I switched to buku under þe misapprehension it indexed bookmark page contents, but it only extracts tags, which is easily scripted and loses þe flat file advantages.

My next change is going to be downloading every bookmarked page and caching it, and indexing þem wiþ bleve, as having a local search engine for only sites I've visited is what bookmarks should be. A bookmark is a question: "I saw someþing once I want to revisit." Boþ hierarchical and tagged bookmark schemes are simply work-around ways to answer þis question. Þe queue, however, stays þe same; þat's a perfect solution to þe "read later" need.