Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Export bookmarks/history/passwords from corrupted profile

  • 1 reply
  • 0 have this problem
  • Last reply by cor-el

more options

My profile seems to be corrupted. Starting Firefox with that profile completely crashes the computer, but when I reinstalled Firefox and it started with another profile it was fine. Switching back to my profile immediately crashed the computer. Is there a way to extract the history/bookmarks/passwords/etc. from my profile folder without starting Firefox? Thanks in advance!

This if Firefox 131.0 on MacOS 10.15.7 (Catalina).

My profile seems to be corrupted. Starting Firefox with that profile completely crashes the computer, but when I reinstalled Firefox and it started with another profile it was fine. Switching back to my profile immediately crashed the computer. Is there a way to extract the history/bookmarks/passwords/etc. from my profile folder without starting Firefox? Thanks in advance! This if Firefox 131.0 on MacOS 10.15.7 (Catalina).

All Replies (1)

more options

You can copy certain files with Firefox closed from one profile folder to another/current profile folder to transfer personal data. Note that best is to avoid restoring a full profile folder and only restore important files that are safe to restore/transfer.

Primary location used for the main profile that keeps your personal data (Root Directory on about:profiles).

  • ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>

  • bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
  • favicons: favicons.sqlite
  • bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
  • cookies.sqlite for the Cookies
  • formhistory.sqlite for saved autocomplete Form Data
  • logins.json (encrypted logins) and key4.db (encryption key/primary password) for logins saved in the Password Manager
  • cert9.db for certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
  • persdict.dat for words added to the spell checker dictionary
  • permissions.sqlite for Permissions and possibly content-prefs.sqlite for other website specific data (Site Preferences)
  • sessionstore.jsonlz4 for open tabs and pinned tabs (see also the sessionstore-backups folder)

Helpful?

Ask a question

You must log in to your account to reply to posts. Please start a new question, if you do not have an account yet.