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Syncronize is causing repeats of bookmarks. Is there a bookmarks clean up of repeats tool?

WMLawson
WMLawson
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Using synchronize across a multitude of different computers / devices causes bookmarks to repeat themselves. I have multiple copies of the same bookmark and it's bloated by every bookmark I ever had. Is there a bookmark cleanup tool that could eliminate duplicates instead of manually deleting a thousand bookmarks by hand?

Using synchronize across a multitude of different computers / devices causes bookmarks to repeat themselves. I have multiple copies of the same bookmark and it's bloated by every bookmark I ever had. Is there a bookmark cleanup tool that could eliminate duplicates instead of manually deleting a thousand bookmarks by hand?
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jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 25 Contributor
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Hi WMLawson, please ignore the spam message promoting an unofficial phone number.

There de-duplication add-ons but I haven't tested them in years. I believe you still need to make some decisions about which ones to get rid of, which might be time-consuming. For example, you could look at these:

Since you run Windows, another possibility is to use a tool that de-duplicates Windows (IE) Favorites. You can export bookmarks from Firefox, import to IE, clean up, then get them back into Firefox. I don't have any particular tools to recommend for that, but many more can work with Favorites than Firefox bookmarks.

the-edmeister
the-edmeister
  • Moderator
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That type of bookmarks duplication is usually caused by a corrupt places.sqlite file in a desktop / laptop Firefox program installation. IMO, "de-duplicating" bookmarks may fix that one device, but the corruption extends to the data that is on the Sync server; and that is liable to reoccur immediately.

  1. The 'trick' to fixing that is to disable Sync from all connected devices and then go to Help > Troubleshooting Information {about:support on the Location bar} and scroll all the way down to Places Database, then use the Verify Integrity button. Wait for the checkIntegrity process to run and provide the results chart.
  2. Then before reconnecting any of your devices back to the Sync server, change your Firefox Account (FxA) password to clear your data from the Sync server which will flush the corrupt data.
  3. Connect with the new FxA to a device where the Verify Integrity process was done. Allow some time for a fresh process to be completed.
  4. As you connect other devices back to your Sync account don't rush things. Each Sync Account is sharing space on a Sync server, and depending upon the overall load on the server that your account is connected to, along with the amount of data you have 'synced' (and other variables), it could take a bit of time for a clean Sync process to run.
  5. And if you have a mobile version of Firefox connected to your FxA the processing done on the Sync server is exponentially more complicated and thus more time consuming; although the Firefox for mobile devices don't seem to suffer the corruption that is seen on laptop / laptop devices.