How do i import search keyword bookmarks?
When I reinstall my computer, I often also clean up my firefox profile, since it has a tendency to become bloated and slow down the browser.
The most annoying thing about this is that my keyword search bookmarks don't work. They follow my other bookmarks through FF Sync, but they lose their functionality.
Is there some way to import the keyword search bookmarks again, or do I need to go through every site I added a keyword for and do it again?
Chosen solution
Both an HTML backup and a JSON backup support saving the keyword, so you can use either of these to have a backup of the bookmarks.
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Is this about adding a keyword via Manage Search Engines or adding a keyword in the Bookmarks Manager (Library)?
The former stores this data in the search-metadata.json file and the latter in places.sqlite like other bookmarks and history related data.
It's neither, it's using the "add a keyword for this search" button that appears in the context menu of most in-page search fields. This creates a bookmark with the place in the GET request where the query should be replaced with %s.
I've imported both of those files into my new profile, and the bookmarks do indeed get imported, but the keywords do not, so I can't use them to search.
There are two ways websites can add search engines. One is found in the search engine drop down list that opens if you click the search engine icon on the Navigation Toolbar. This forum page can add an Add "Firefox Help" item to the drop-down list. This way you add a search engine.
If you use "Add a keyword for this search" then you create a normal bookmark and add a keyword to this bookmark to make it possible to use this bookmark via the location bar with extra parameters.
For bookmarks created this way you need to specify a location (bookmarks folder) where to store this bookmark and you can find this bookmark in the Bookmarks Manager (Library).
Bookmarks created this way should be present in an HTML backup (SHORTCUTURL="k") and in a JSON backup ("keyword":"k") because these are normal bookmarks that can have GET data or POST data appended.
So far I'm with you, but I cannot find any kind of backup. Is there a way to simply use the bookmarks to restore keyword search functionality?
I've redone the process manually, so I just want to know for future occurrences. If there is none I'll mark this as resolved anyway.
How did you previously restore the bookmarks?
You wrote above: When I reinstall my computer, I often also clean up my firefox profile,
If you didn't keep any bookmarks cleaning up the computer then you also lost keyword bookmarks that you created.
You can create a backup manually.
Note that Firefox keeps JSON backups (bookmarks-####-##-##_xx.json) in the bookmarkbackups folder in the profile folder that you can use to restore the bookmarks in case you have a backup of this folder and its files.
As I mentioned I use Firefox Sync. The bookmarks sync, but the search functionality doesn't work when synced.
Keywords aren't included in a Sync, only the name and location, so you will lose keywords with restoring the bookmarks this way.
Yes, that's what I figured. So from this, I take it that there is no simple way to restore them without copying the profile, and I'll have to do it manually in the future?
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Both an HTML backup and a JSON backup support saving the keyword, so you can use either of these to have a backup of the bookmarks.
Okay, that's what I need then. Thank you for your patience.
You're welcome