Logins and passwords all missing.
I am in Windows 7, 64-bit. All of a sudden all of my Firefox logins and passwords are missing. I read several threads about this, which told me to check the "Old Firefox Data" folder on my desktop for the logins.json file. However, the only information in that folder is from 2018, two full years ago. Where did my logins and passwords from yesterday go?
Also, I just updated to version 80.0.1, hoping to get my passwords and logins back, but they are sill missing. The problem just occurred today, before I updated from version 79-something.
Thank you for any help you can give. This is extremely upsetting.
Chosen solution
Okay, my apologies. It turns out that I deleted the passwords. I have been using a new drive cleaner, and I just realized that somehow the "erase passwords" box got checked. I unchecked it and saved a few passwords, and they appear to be staying.
Sorry for the error, and thank you very much for your help, Alice.
Read this answer in context 👍 0All Replies (8)
Your missing passwords (and other user data) may be located in another Firefox profile. See Recover user data missing after Firefox update.
Hi, Alice, Thank you for the reply, but this did not fix the problem. Two profiles show up: Default-release, and Default. Neither one has the passwords. I do not understand why this happened. Not only that, but when I signed up to make this post, I saved the login here, and it is gone now, too. The list of logins is completely empty, even though it was full and working yesterday. Do you have any other ideas of why this might have happened and how I can fix it? I am worried not only about the time-consuming job of rebuilding my logins, but also about security.
I saw some posts mentioning a "Sync" add-on where passwords could be located, but I am pretty sure that would not apply to me, since this computer does not share any information with other computers. At least it's not supposed to.
Thanks for any additional ideas you may have. I am worrying about continuing with Firefox if this is going to be a continuing problem.
Chosen Solution
Okay, my apologies. It turns out that I deleted the passwords. I have been using a new drive cleaner, and I just realized that somehow the "erase passwords" box got checked. I unchecked it and saved a few passwords, and they appear to be staying.
Sorry for the error, and thank you very much for your help, Alice.
That was very good work. Well Done. Please flag your last post as Solved Problem as this can help others with similar problems.
In the event that the passwords information is lost, you
should record all information in a separate text file
somewhere else on your hard drive, or written down.
You can easily copy and paste if you need to do so. If
you are concerned about someone else looking
at that file, you can compress it using a password.
Thanks very much, Fred. I appreciate everyone's patience and help.
Virginian11 said
Okay, my apologies. It turns out that I deleted the passwords. I have been using a new drive cleaner, and I just realized that somehow the "erase passwords" box got checked. I unchecked it and saved a few passwords, and they appear to be staying. Sorry for the error, and thank you very much for your help, Alice.
You're welcome. I marked your above post as the solution.
FredMcD said
In the event that the passwords information is lost, you should record all information in a separate text file somewhere else on your hard drive, or written down. You can easily copy and paste if you need to do so. If you are concerned about someone else looking at that file, you can compress it using a password.
Fred is giving you good advice. I save all my passwords in a separate file, in a safe place.
P.S. On backing up Firefox usernames and passwords to a .csv file, see Export login data from Firefox. On importing a .csv backup, see Import login and password data from a file.
Since you are on Windows 7, you can check in Windows Explorer if there is a previous version of the logins.json file available.
- right-click: Properties -> Previous Versions
- https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17119/windows-7-recover-lost-delete-files