LinkSave

A privacy-minded Chrome extension for saving, organizing, and finding links.

LinkSave keeps your useful pages in one personal collection. Sign in with Google, save the current tab or add a URL manually, then search, filter, copy, edit, or remove saved links from the extension popup.

Preview

The screenshots use generic sample account information.

Features

• Save the active page from the popup or the browser context menu.
• Add links manually, with an optional custom title.
• Sign in with Google; links are scoped to the signed-in user.
• Search by title, URL, or domain, and filter by a date range.
• Edit titles, delete individual links, or copy the current results to the clipboard.
• Cache links locally so the popup opens quickly while it refreshes in the background.

Stack

• Extension: WXT, React, and TypeScript
• API: Express and Node.js
• Data: MongoDB with Mongoose
• Authentication: Chrome Identity API and Google OAuth

Run locally

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20 or later
• A MongoDB database (local or hosted)
• A Google OAuth client configured for a Chrome extension

1. Install dependencies

npm ci
cd server && npm ci
cd ..

2. Configure the API

Create server/.env from the example:

cp server/.env.example server/.env

Set the following values:

MONGODB_URI=mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/linksave
PORT=3001

3. Configure the extension

Create .env.local from the example:

cp .env.example .env.local

For local development, keep the default value:

VITE_API_BASE=http://localhost:3001/api
GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID=your-chrome-extension-client-id.apps.googleusercontent.com

For a deployed API, replace VITE_API_BASE with that API's public /api URL. Before distributing a build, configure GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID for your Chrome Web Store extension ID in Google Cloud. An OAuth client ID is public by design—it must be present in the built manifest—but sourcing it from .env.local keeps deployment configuration out of the repository. Never commit a client secret, database URI, access token, or a real .env file.

4. Start the app

In one terminal, run the API:

cd server
npm run dev

In another terminal, run the extension:

npm run dev

WXT builds the development extension and prints the location to load in Chrome. Open chrome://extensions, enable Developer mode, and load the generated extension directory.

Build a distributable extension

npm run build
npm run zip

The build artifacts are created by WXT in the ignored output directory. Use npm run build:firefox or npm run zip:firefox for Firefox builds.

Environment variables

File	Variable	Purpose
.env.local	VITE_API_BASE	Public base URL of the LinkSave API, including /api.
.env.local	GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID	Chrome-extension OAuth client ID, inserted into the build manifest.
server/.env	MONGODB_URI	MongoDB connection string. Keep private.
server/.env	PORT	Local API port; defaults to 3001.

Permissions and privacy

LinkSave requests only the permissions needed for its features:

• identity for Google sign-in;
• activeTab to read the URL and title of the page you choose to save;
• contextMenus to add Save to LinkSave to the browser menu;
• notifications to show save results; and
• storage for extension storage support.

The API requires a valid Google access token for every link request and stores links against that user's Google account ID. Review and secure your own deployment before making it available to others.

API contract

All successful API responses use a data envelope; failures use an error object with a stable code, a readable message, and optional field-level details.

{ "data": { "link": {} } }

{ "error": { "code": "VALIDATION_ERROR", "message": "One or more fields are invalid." } }

Endpoint	Success	Common errors
GET /api/health	200	—
GET /api/me	200	401 unauthenticated
GET /api/links	200	401, 503 database unavailable
POST /api/links	201	400 invalid input, 401, 409 duplicate link, 503
PUT /api/links/:id	200	400 invalid ID/input, 401, 404, 503
DELETE /api/links/:id	204	400 invalid ID, 401, 404, 503

The API accepts only http and https links. A compound database index prevents the same user from saving the same normalized URL more than once, including during concurrent requests.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for the development workflow, CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md for community expectations, and SECURITY.md to report vulnerabilities responsibly.

License

LinkSave is released under the MIT License.