Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

How do I edit out 1000's of repeatitive entries from my bookmarks file?

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by cor-el

rcmedic
rcmedic
more options

After choosing the "Auto Sync" option to sync my bookmarks across multiple devices I discovered that FireFox made 1000's of repetitive entries of both folders as well as URL's/links inside the folders that severely slows the function of FireFox, nevermind making it highly unstable. I have made numerous attempts to clean up the bookmarks file from within firefox without success and have also failed to be able to clean up the file using and HTML editor (DreamWeaver) after exporting the file out of FireFox. I am extremely unhappy with mozilla/firefox. How do I fix this issue. The contamination migrated across all computers prior to my catching the problem and terminating the "Auto Sync" option.

After choosing the "Auto Sync" option to sync my bookmarks across multiple devices I discovered that FireFox made 1000's of repetitive entries of both folders as well as URL's/links inside the folders that severely slows the function of FireFox, nevermind making it highly unstable. I have made numerous attempts to clean up the bookmarks file from within firefox without success and have also failed to be able to clean up the file using and HTML editor (DreamWeaver) after exporting the file out of FireFox. I am extremely unhappy with mozilla/firefox. How do I fix this issue. The contamination migrated across all computers prior to my catching the problem and terminating the "Auto Sync" option.
Attached screenshots

All Replies (3)

rcmedic
rcmedic Question owner
more options

I forgot to mention that the partial screen shot attached is but a single page of many 100's of pages of the same thing.

Tonnes
Tonnes
  • Locale Leader
more options

You could try the (rather new) Bookmarks Organizer add-on to remove duplicate bookmark entries.

If you try it, it’s probably best to choose "duplicates" in its drop-down, as it may cause heavy load on network traffic otherwise. I would also suggest to back up your places.sqlite file that contains your bookmarks when Firefox is closed before using it.

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

You can try to restore an older compressed .jsonlz4 backup from the bookmarkbackups folder that doesn't look corrupted. Note that this will replace all the bookmarks

The name of a JSON bookmarks backup file includes a total item count (folders and separators included) and an hash value to prevent saving the same backup more than once.

  • bookmarks-YYYY-MM-DD_<item count>_<hash>.jsonlz4.

If you use Sync then best is to disconnect Sync while performing maintenance/repair efforts to files in the Firefox profile folder.

You may have to rename/remove all places.sqlite files if the problem persists.

You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.