If there's anything worse than doing something stupid, it's having to explain later that it wasn't as bad as you thought. Like telling everyone you lost your wallet and later finding it on the bedroom floor right next to the spot where you normally take off your pants.

I got home a while ago, after being away since Thursday morning, and had another look at the computer on which my so-called disaster happened.

Turns out my folder full of bookmarks wasn't really gone at all. What I had actually done was to drag and drop the "missing" folder into another folder. So it was there all the time, just hidden in a place where I didn't expect to find it.

What I didn't tell you earlier (because I didn't think it was relevant) is that there was another folder on the toolbar right next to the one that went missing. Today I opened up that folder, and, lo and behold, there was the "missing" folder inside it. All I had to do was drag and drop it back to its original location.

Oh, well. To atone for my false alarm, I hope I have impressed on all of you the importance of making a backup. Here's what I should have done before Thursday (and have now done):

HOW TO BACK UP BOOKMARKS FROM GOOGLE CHROME:
1. Click the wrench.
2. Click "Bookmarks"
3. Click "Bookmark Manager". This will open a new tab.
4. Click "Organize"
5. Click "Export Bookmarks to HTML file..."
6. The standard "Save As" box will open up. The default location will be your "Documents" folder. The default file name will be "bookmarks_mm_dd_yy.html" (where mm, dd, and yy are today's date). Change these if you like. (But why change them?)
7. Click "Save".

The procedure for restoring bookmarks from backup is the same down to:
5. Click "Import Bookmarks from HTML file..."

By the way, that file you saved can be opened just like any HTML file, with Chrome or any other browser.

I'm sure other browsers have procedures for backing up bookmarks, but the resulting file may not have the same format.

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions.