How to Migrate from Diigo to Marqly
Diigo's years of research annotations are a real asset, so this guide starts where every honest Diigo migration starts: bookmark links, tags, and descriptions transfer automatically through the export file — highlights, sticky notes, and Outliners don't. Here's exactly what moves, what to do about the rest, and how to verify the import.
The Diigo → Marqly preservation table
| Diigo data | In the export? | In Marqly | What to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bookmarks (URL, title, date) | ✅ Yes | Migrated as saves | Nothing — automatic |
| Tags | ✅ Yes | Mapped to Marqly tags | Nothing — automatic |
| Bookmark descriptions | ✅ Yes | Preserved on the save | Nothing — automatic |
| Folder-style lists | ⚠️ As tag groups | File into boards after import | 10 minutes, per folder that matters |
| On-page highlights & sticky notes | ❌ No | — | Copy into the bookmark description before exporting, or keep a read-only Diigo account for reference |
| Outliners | ❌ Not in bookmark export | Saved as the exported HTML/PDF | Export each Outliner you still care about, per-Outliner |
| Groups & shared libraries | ⚠️ Bookmarks only, per group | Public board sharing (view-only, no teams) | Export group libraries separately if members won't migrate too |
| Cached page copies | ❌ No | — | Nothing transfers live-link rot protection; use browser save-for-offline where needed today |
The migration, step by step
Rescue your annotations first
Before touching the export button, decide what highlights and Outliners are worth keeping:
- Sort My Library by tags and open the saves with the most annotations.
- For each critical save, copy the highlights you want to keep into that bookmark's Description field with Diigo's edit dialog.
- Open Outliners and export the live ones to HTML.
- Archived Outliner sets — leave them where they are, or keep a paid-free Diigo read-only account as the cold archive.
Export the library from Diigo
- Sign in to diigo.com and open My Library.
- Go to Tools → Export and run the standard bookmark export.
- Download the resulting HTML file to your computer.
- If you organize as group member, export each group library as well.
Inspect, import, and verify
- Open the file in the free Bookmark File Viewer — it parses the export locally (nothing uploads) and shows your save count and structure.
- Sign in to app.marqly.com, go to Settings → Import, and upload the HTML file.
- Compare the imported count against the viewer's count — they should match exactly.
- Spot-check five saves you know well: description present? tags attached? link opens?
Bring the saved research into Marqly
Free plan: 100 bookmarks and search over the whole library. Pro adds the AI layer that retrieves those years of links by meaning.
What transfers — fidelity matrix
Every row below was read out of the importer Marqly actually runs in production, plus fixture runs of each export format. Where something is lost, we say so — the point is an import you do not have to redo.
Accepted input: bookmark HTML export (My Library → Tools → Export)
| Field | Outcome | What it means for your library |
|---|---|---|
| URL | Supported | Verbatim — query strings (including signed or tracking parameters) and fragments are preserved; nothing is normalized away. |
| Title | Supported | With HTML entities decoded (& → &). |
| Folders / collections | Supported | Each folder level becomes a Marqly board; items land in the deepest board. |
| Tags | Supported | Diigo writes its rich tag data into the standard TAGS attribute, which the importer reads. Private/list tags come through as plain tags. |
| Descriptions | Partial | Imported as the bookmark description. The current importer can pair a <DD> note with the following item and drops a folder’s very first note — open the first saves of each folder after importing and re-paste if a note landed wrong. |
| Highlights & annotations (Diigo’s core) | Not supported | Diigo stores annotations server-side attached to the page — they are not in the bookmark HTML export at all. Before exporting, copy annotations that matter into each bookmark’s description, then import. |
| Outliners / lists | Not supported | No automatic path; export what you need as HTML files and re-save them. |
| Saved date | Not supported | The export carries it (ADD_DATE/created) and the parser reads it, but the import stores items with the import date. Sort by “recently added” after a big import with that in mind. |
| Duplicates | Not supported | Import writes every row; no dedup pass runs. Check the export first with the free duplicate finder, or clean up in Marqly after import. |
- URL
- Supported
- Verbatim — query strings (including signed or tracking parameters) and fragments are preserved; nothing is normalized away.
- Title
- Supported
- With HTML entities decoded (& → &).
- Folders / collections
- Supported
- Each folder level becomes a Marqly board; items land in the deepest board.
- Tags
- Supported
- Diigo writes its rich tag data into the standard TAGS attribute, which the importer reads. Private/list tags come through as plain tags.
- Descriptions
- Partial
- Imported as the bookmark description. The current importer can pair a <DD> note with the following item and drops a folder’s very first note — open the first saves of each folder after importing and re-paste if a note landed wrong.
- Highlights & annotations (Diigo’s core)
- Not supported
- Diigo stores annotations server-side attached to the page — they are not in the bookmark HTML export at all. Before exporting, copy annotations that matter into each bookmark’s description, then import.
- Outliners / lists
- Not supported
- No automatic path; export what you need as HTML files and re-save them.
- Saved date
- Not supported
- The export carries it (ADD_DATE/created) and the parser reads it, but the import stores items with the import date. Sort by “recently added” after a big import with that in mind.
- Duplicates
- Not supported
- Import writes every row; no dedup pass runs. Check the export first with the free duplicate finder, or clean up in Marqly after import.
parser code vs Diigo’s documented export format; no live Diigo export file run yet — treat page-level details as spec-based · checked 2026-09-26 against Marqly’s deployed importer. Preview any export file before uploading it with the bookmark file viewer; clean repeats first with the duplicate finder.
Diigo migration — common questions
What transfers from a Diigo export to Marqly?
Titles, links, tags and descriptions come across: tags become searchable Marqly tags, and each description imports as the bookmark description — with one caveat to check, not hide: the current importer can pair a description with the following item and drop the first note in a folder, so spot-check folder heads after import. Dates: the export has them, the importer does not store them — saves take the import day.
Do my Diigo highlights and sticky notes transfer?
No — and this is the decision that matters for most Diigo researchers. Annotations are stored on Diigo's side attached to the page, and the bookmark HTML export does not include them. Before exporting, open the highlighter panel for each heavily annotated page and copy the notes into the bookmark description, or export completed Outliners to HTML and re-file them in Marqly as saves. Treat annotations as a manual migration step, not an automatic one.
Can I import Diigo Outliners?
Outliners export individually to HTML or PDF from Diigo's Outliner view. Once exported, you can save the document itself — but the outline structure will be inside the export you keep, not editable as a Marqly board. If Outliners are the heart of your research system, weigh that before switching; if they were a scratchpad, import the bookmarks underneath.
What about Diigo groups and shared libraries?
Group bookmarks export from the group's library view as the same bookmark HTML format, but group membership, collaborative tags, and shared highlights stay behind. Marqly has no team workspace; its closest equivalent is sharing a board as a public page, which anyone can view without an account.
Does exporting delete anything from my Diigo account?
No. Export is read-only. Keep your Diigo account active while you verify the import, then cancel when you're confident — that's also the safest sequence if you decide the annotation loss is a dealbreaker.
Is Marqly free for a Diigo-sized library?
The free plan stores up to 100 bookmarks with search across the whole library, no card required. Diigo's free tier is ad-supported and caps lifetime totals, so larger archives sit behind Diigo's paid plans as well. Beyond 100 saves, Marqly Pro is $72/year (about $6/month billed annually, or $9 monthly), with a standing $49 first-year offer at checkout.
