My Firefox bookmarks have disappeared
Hi,
I recently had issues with my MB pro booting up(hd was failing), so I had to use an external HD, install mac so high sierra, and boot from that. Luckily, my MB hd is still readable and am in the process of transferring all of my data.
When I opened the firefox app in my applications folder, I noticed immediately that all of my bookmarks are gone. I use firefox without signing into a profile(or at lest I think I do), and when I navigate to my firefox folder (HD/Library/Application Support/), there is no Firefox folder, only a Mozilla folder that has an Extensions folder and a NavigateMessagingHosts folder.
Is there a way to recover any of my bookmarks?
Thanks in advance :)
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Hi tommycost, you can discover the true location of the Firefox folder by accessing your currently live profile folder from inside Firefox, from the Troubleshooting Information page. Either:
- "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Troubleshooting Information
- (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
- type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Return
In the first table on the page, on the Profile Folder row, click the "Show in Finder" button. If Finder highlights an icon with a semi-random name like a1b2c3d4.default, double-click it to display the contents of that profile folder.
Here you will find a bookmarkbackups folder, which probably won't have anything useful yet, but you can see how the path works and check that same path -- the semi-random profile folder name will be different, however -- on your old hard drive.
Can you find the old bookmarkbackups folder? You could copy the recent backups to your "live" bookmarkbackups folder, and then try using the Restore feature to apply them to your current Firefox. This article has the Restore steps:
Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer
Does that work?
(As a Windows user, unfortunately I can't give you personally tested tips on navigating hidden folders on MacOS...)
"HD/Library/Application Support/" is the main Library folder. The Firefox profile folder is in the hidden Library folder in your home folder (~/Library).
- ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>/
- /Users/<user>/Library/Application Support/Firefox/
Thanks jscher2000,
I've gone through the steps and located my profile "a73oj9j5.default", but I'm a bit lost when you mention the semi random folder. Can you walk me through the steps to locate my old profile and how and what to import in order to restore my bookmarks?
I searched for "bookmarkbackups folder" and found the current one under the profile mentioned above. Below is a screenshot. As far as the old one, I don't know if it exists, as I used firefox and never browsed while signed in(sort of how chrome prompts the user to sign in with the gmail).
I've also attached a screenshot of my profiles page in firefox, something I came across earlier during my research.
Apologies in advance as I'm not the most computer literate person.
The most recent backup 2018-08-23 has 19 bookmark items, so best is to use that backup. You can use this utility to check a compressed .jsonlz4 backup.
The name of an automatically created JSON bookmarks backup in the bookmarkbackups folder includes a total item count (folders and separators included) and an hash value to prevent saving the same backup more than once. You also see this count in the Restore menu drop-down list.
- bookmarks-YYYY-MM-DD_<item count>_<hash>.jsonlz4.
Hi tommycost, if you are looking for bookmarkbackups from before August 21st, then there must be another folder. Unfortunately, I don't know the trick to find hidden folders in your old HD data.
By semi-random I mean the left half of the profile folder name is random, and the right half isn't, so it's semi-random (half-random): "a73oj9j5.default"
The older folder will follow that same pattern, but I couldn't tell you what the random part will be, that's the point, to make it unguessable.
Hi,
cor-el, thanks for the help. My last active use with my old firefox was August 15th. I must have had over 200 bookmarks.
The August 23 backup of 19 items are all new bookmarks made since my hd failed. Where else can I look for these 200 bookmarks?
jscher2000, thanks for the clarification. I guess I'll keep searching for that old folder.
Were you able to locate the Firefox profile folder on that old drive?
In Mac OS X v10.7 and later, the ~/Library folder in the Home directory is a hidden folder.
hey cor-el,
I think it's the old profile. I clicked the box to unhide my "Library" folder. I selected my old hd that is having issues and used this path:
Macintosh HD/my username/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/a73oj9j5.default
It seems like this is a new profile that I created once I booted up from my external on August 20th. I wonder if my new profile overwrote my old one?
attached are some screenshots. There must be a way to get these bookmarks back, no?
