A bookmark folder with thousands of bookmarks I've saved over many years has disappeared and I can't find it in the bookmarks menu or recycle bin
I've also tried doing a restore by choosing the "Show all bookmarks" "Import and backup" "Restore" to a day earlier and the folder still didn't show up. When I tried to do this again using one of the many earlier dates I had seen that were available the first time, now only today's date is available. I've done searches and no folder by the name of the missing folder appears to be on my computer. I'm sure I didn't delete it and nobody else has access to my computer. I've used Firefox for many years and I've never seen this problem. I've checked in all the other bookmark folders and it's not in any of them. If I can't resore or find this folder, years of work and thousands of bookmarks will be lost. Any help or suggestions anybody might have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
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Immediately backup your whole Firefox profile.
You will have over written your bookmarks database and it may be difficult to recover. You may at least have backups of bookmarks that are still usable but that is why you must back up the profile.
Create a new additional test profile using the profile manager. Next test the bookmarks from your backup restoring them into Firefox whilst open with and using the new test profile. If one of those backups works you should be able to restore that into your ordinary Firefox profile.
You may need to delete the database places.sqlite to get working bookmarks. But rename it rather than delete it as it is then easier to reverse. Note if you do need to delete the places database you will lose your Firefox History.
There is an alternative strategy but again ensue the profile is backedup. And in this case also backup separately places.sqlite before any recovery attempt.
The Windows OS should try to keep previous copies of Files and it is possible that you will have a usable previous copy of places.sqlite that may be recovered by options available from right clicking the current version.
Related articles
- Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles_creating-a-profile
- Recover lost or missing Bookmarks
- Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data_how-do-i-find-my-profile
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Places.sqlite
- These articles mentions the last resort deleting places.sqlite to restore bookmarks, BUT you lose history AND need a correct backup file within the profile for Firefox to utilise
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Lost_bookmarks#Restoring_bookmarks_in_Firefox_3_and_above
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Bookmarks_history_and_toolbar_buttons_not_working_-_Firefox#Rebuild_Places_database
Open Firefox. In the address box, enter about:support. Under the page banner on the right, look for Profile Folder and press the button marked Show Folder. This will open your file browser to your profile folder.
Manual instructions
Open you file browser. Depending on your system, look for this folder; C:\Users\==User Name==\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox. Look in the Profiles folder, then find your profile.
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In your profile folder, look for bookmarkbackups folder.
Take care.
Remember restoring backups overwrites data. If you do not backup first you could lose bookmarks. There is a posibility for instance that places.sqlite is repairable and has very recent bookmarks in it. The bookmarks it contains will be older with every restore attempted, and the backups themselves may be corrupt.
These can't get your data back, but will help in the future.
These add-ons can be a great help by backing up and restoring Firefox
FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension) {web link} FEBE allows you to quickly and easily backup your Firefox extensions, history, passwords, and more. In fact, it goes beyond just backing up -- It will actually rebuild your saved files individually into installable .xpi files. It will also make backup of files that you choose.
OPIE {web link} Import/Export extension preferences
Note that Firefox stores the bookmarks in an SQLite database file and not as individual files and folders on disk like IE does. So nothing will come up with a search.
You can do a search in the Bookmarks Manager (Library) in case you moved this folder into another folder.
You can also check the JSON backups (bookmarks-####-##-##_xxxx.json) in the bookmarkbackups folder. The xxxx part in the name shows how many bookmarks are in the file and that should make it possible to select a backup that looks most promising.
Make sure to backup your current bookmarks before restoring a JSON backup because that will replace all the bookmarks with the ones in the JSON backup.
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Backing_up_and_restoring_bookmarks_-_Firefox
- https://support.mozilla.org/kb/restore-bookmarks-from-backup-or-move-them
You can also check for problems with the places.sqlite database file in the Firefox profile folder.
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Bookmarks_history_and_toolbar_buttons_not_working_-_Firefox
- https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Bookmarks+not+saved#w_fix-the-bookmarks-file
- Places Maintenance https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/places-maintenance/
Τροποποιήθηκε στις από το χρήστη cor-el