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My friend wanted me to help him sort his bookmarks. I put them in alphebetical order. He decided he wanted them put back in "date added" order...

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  • Last reply by John99

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I've found a workaround and now his bookmarks are back in order by date added, but they are reversed, i.e., the last bookmark is at the top.

For those wanting the workaround (as I see this question was never properly answered) I opened "Show all Bookmarks", clicked on Bookmarks Menu, and View, Sort, and Sort by Added. Then highlighted all his bookmarks, and copied. Then created a new folder in the Bookmarks Menu, and pasted to that new folder.

I then created another folder and did it again as a backup, and deleted all his bookmarks in alphabetical order, then opened one of the folders I just made, copied the bookmarks and pasted them into the Bookmarks Menu.

(I made that extra folder just in case things didn't go as planned. He would have understandably freaked out had I deleted all his bookmarks without making another backup of them! After I saw that everything was cool, I deleted the extra folder.)

But still the order is reversed.

How do I reverse the reversed order?

I've found a workaround and now his bookmarks are back in order by date added, but they are reversed, i.e., the last bookmark is at the top. For those wanting the workaround (as I see this question was never properly answered) I opened "Show all Bookmarks", clicked on Bookmarks Menu, and View, Sort, and Sort by Added. Then highlighted all his bookmarks, and copied. Then created a new folder in the Bookmarks Menu, and pasted to that new folder. I then created another folder and did it again as a backup, and deleted all his bookmarks in alphabetical order, then opened one of the folders I just made, copied the bookmarks and pasted them into the Bookmarks Menu. (I made that extra folder just in case things didn't go as planned. He would have understandably freaked out had I deleted all his bookmarks without making another backup of them! After I saw that everything was cool, I deleted the extra folder.) But still the order is reversed. How do I reverse the reversed order?

All Replies (10)

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You can click the column header in the Library another time to reverse the sort order. You can right-click the header bar to select which columns to show and make the Added column visible. The click the column header once or twice until you see the wanted sort order.

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I think you misunderstand. We are not trying to see his bookmarks in the library. Rather, we want to see his bookmarks when he clicks the word Bookmarks on the Menu Bar.

Modified by uhclem

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The bookmarks that you see in the Bookmarks menu are located in the Bookmarks Menu folder and you can select this folder in the left panel in the Bookmarks Manager (Library) to see the bookmarks it contains in the right panel where you can sort them for viewing purposes either by clicking a column header or via the Views menu.

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Do any of you who read my question even notice that we know about the Library and how to view Bookmarks in it??

It's almost like Mozilla has Answering Bots incapable of independent thought. I was hoping for an answer by a human being. We want to see his bookmarks in the order they were created/added when he clicks on the word Bookmarks on the Menu Bar, NOT in the Library.

Just so we're clear: We want to see his bookmarks in the order they were created/added when he clicks on the word Bookmarks on the Menu Bar, NOT in the Library.

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I think it is you that may be misunderstanding the answers. Even if you may not fully understand them have you attempted to follow the suggestions you were given.

The bookmarks Library displays and has options; including sorting the display, of bookmarks; & selecting the items or columns shown. The bookmarks you see when clicking on the word Bookmarks on the Menu Bar are a representation of what is displayed in part of the Bookmarks library.
(The Library is in turn a user friendly representation of data in the file places.sqlite )

To prove that to yourself delete or duplicate an item in the bookmarks menu of the bookmarks library. That change will be reflected in what you see when you click on the word Bookmarks on the Menu Bar

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Yes, I understand this. I've succeeded in putting his bookmarks back in the order they were added using the Library. But they are in reverse order, i.e., the newest ones are at the top and the oldest ones are at the bottom. But he wants them to be in the original order: Oldest at the top, newest at the bottom, and no matter how they're displayed in the Library, they remain upside down in the Bookmarks on the Menu bar.

I was actually hoping for a solution to that specific problem possibly using Windows Explorer or some text editor as it's obvious to me Library will not solve this problem.

Can I rearrange the items in places.sqlite to force them to "stick" in the Bookmarks Menu link?

(To say clicking six different places to see something one could previously see by clicking in only one is "user friendly" is a bizarre definition of the term.)

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There was a powerful bookmark sorting extension named SortPlaces that unfortunately was withdrawn from the add-ons site at some point. I don't know whether it works with Firefox 24, so make a backup first, but you can still find the last official version in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, and there's an unofficial updated version on a third party site:

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Yes, thank you. I've seen references to this. I appreciate the links.

Can you please explain how to back up bookmarks so that I don't lose them? (Or provide a link that explains it.)

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See:

Note that restoring a JSON backup will replace all your current bookmarks (you get a warning about that).
If you already have bookmarks that you wish to keep then export them to an HTML file before restoring the JSON backup.
Importing bookmarks from an HTML file adds the imported bookmarks to the already existing bookmarks, so you may need to remove duplicates.
You can't import a JSON backup to add (merge) bookmarks.

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I am trying to think how your friends bookmarks came to be in a different order permanently and how you may be able to reverse that.

I note you have been copying bookmark folders. You have already discovered that the sort orders used to display may be varied and that second clicks toggle the order to be ascending or descending. If you copy a bookmark folder contents they retain the order that they were sorted on in the display when copied.

So if you have a folder. The bookmarks are in the order in which they were added. You may however display them in Alphabetical or reverse alphabetical order or reverse of the order added etc.

Try this I hope it will work

  1. Obviously back up the bookmarks first.
  2. In the bookmarks library re-sort the folder book marks menu.
  3. Create a new folder.
  4. Copy that the resorted bookmarks to the new folder.
  5. Delete the mis-sorted content and copy the new content over it