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

How to merge bookmarks (including tags)?

  • 10 replies
  • 11 have this problem
  • 9 views
  • Last reply by John99

more options

I've tried the interesting method suggested here https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/941531 "An alternative to merge bookmarks is to use two profiles and restore a JSON backup in each of them. Use Copy in the Library (Bookmarks Manager) of the second Firefox instance to Copy selected bookmarks to the clipboard and Paste them into the Library of the Firefox instance opened with the default profile" however,by the looks of it,this basically copied the selected bookmarks from one library to the other as html links:original tags from the first profile were not visible in the second Library. Was it supposed to happen,and if so,is there any other workaround to copy/merge bookmarks between profiles,*preserving* tags ?

I've tried the interesting method suggested here https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/941531 "An alternative to merge bookmarks is to use two profiles and restore a JSON backup in each of them. Use Copy in the Library (Bookmarks Manager) of the second Firefox instance to Copy selected bookmarks to the clipboard and Paste them into the Library of the Firefox instance opened with the default profile" however,by the looks of it,this basically copied the selected bookmarks from one library to the other as html links:original tags from the first profile were not visible in the second Library. Was it supposed to happen,and if so,is there any other workaround to copy/merge bookmarks between profiles,*preserving* tags ?

All Replies (10)

more options

I tried that recently in Firefox 23 whilst answering another thread and thought it worked. However I obviously failed to try with a tagged bookmark.

I have just whilst writing this tried between an Aurora & Nightly version and that worked but as you say did not copy over tags.

You could as a work around copy groups of bookmarks over from the tagged results. That would allow you at least to select all or some bookmarks with a specific single tag, but there is no easy way to add the tags or avoid duplications.

I guess the solution would be down to hacking the .sql or .json and that is beyond me

  • How do I merge 6 older saved json files with bookmarks in FF 23.0.1? Thanks /questions/968777
more options

P.S. If you have separate devices does syncing merge bookmarks with tags ?

more options

Note that it is possible to select multiple bookmarks in the Library (use Ctrl or Shift) and add a tag(s) to all of the selected bookmarks.

more options

Thanks cor-el,

I thought I had done that before and now see it does still work. Rather none intuitively the coloured highlighting of the group disappears but the tag still adds.

more options

Thanks John99 and Corel,those are very interesting workarounds (didn't know about the "batch" tagging) but still far from ideal:Firefox needs IMHO more tools to work with the bookmarks Library,tags are an important feature and importing a simple html backup won't cut it in that regard when trying to merge bookmarks.

@John99 : no I don't use sync/cloud stuff in general,and hacking sql or json databases is way beyond me,although I know it is possible in principle.

Probably the now removed extension Syncplaces could do that,all Andy Halford's extensions were -as far as I understand- GUI tools to manipulate the places database,they were in fact already hard to use for me.

more options

If I copy tags from the tags folder and paste them in this text area the I get a list of each tag and links to the bookmarks that have these tags.

If I paste the links in tab and switch design mode on via a bookmarklet then I get a list with clickable links.

javascript:void(document.designMode=(document.designMode=='on')?'off':'on');

So apparently you can copy tags, only pasting in the Library doesn't work.

Modified by cor-el

more options

I was almost giving up,then finally managed to copy the tags folder from the Library,paste it into this very form and there you go,a list of tags each with its own bookmarks.

Then I've managed somehow to paste the content from this area directly into a tab using your bookmarklet and got that list again inside the page,only in my case the links aren't clickable,unfortunately.

Maybe it's NoScript or some other javascript modified preference that interferes with the bookmarklet?

This is fascinating,however I've noticed that attempting to paste directly into another profile's Library does not work,which in some way defeats the purpose of this exercise-it's appalling to see the lengths you must go to accomplish such a simple necessity like merging bookmarks from different profiles,this should be IMHO a built-in feature of Firefox.

EDIT:after some more fiddling,I've obtained a list of clickable links,thanks for this amazing workaround-not exactly easy,but still nice to have.

Modified by mark2

more options

Links are not clickable as long as the web page is in design mode.

This code allows to switch design mode on/off

Copy and Paste the JavaScript code in the Code field in the Browser/Error Console (Firefox/Tools > Web Developer;Ctrl+Shift+J) and click the Evaluate button.

var gB = top.opener.gBrowser;
var dM = gB.contentDocument.designMode;
gB.contentDocument.designMode=(dM == 'on')?'off':'on';
more options

I have been trying to copy my XP bookmarks from FF into our Windows8 Firefox (FF) list of bookmarks. Like others I found that only one list can exist at a time.

Looking into the Sort Bookmarks retired add-on preserved by a kind soul, I loaded it easily into FF ver26 (it is now 28Dec2013 in Melbourne AU). It did not help with a merge-solution though.

I then made 2 copies of the Win8 bookmarks: a "backup" copy in the '.json' file format and an "Export to HTML" file. I saved both to the Desktop for fast access.

Clicking on the HTML version proved I could open a complete list of usable links. However, testing quickly showed that only 1 link could be opened at a time | saved as a bookmark at a time.

MY SIMPLE SOLUTION

The older XP bookmark list is vastly larger than the Win8 list. So the decision was made to make it the starter booklist in FF on the Win8 laptop. I went to FF 'Bookmarks' > 'Show All Bookmarks' > Import and Backup > Restore > Choose File > then selected the old XP backup file '.json'.

The warning that any existing bookmarks will be overwritten was accepted and I imported the old bookmark list properly.

I then went to my Desktop and clicked on the Win8 bookmark list saved as a HTML file. It opened easily as another Tab in FF.

I then proceeded to manually save each link as a new bookmark, saving into existing folders from the imported older bookmarks that now are the beginnings of the manually combined bookmarks (XP + Win8). Two methods seem to exist: right click on the link and select "Save As A Bookmark"; or open the link normally then save as a bookmark.

If this helps anyone in the future - excellent. Holiday cheers to all.

more options

You could have imported the HTML file instead of manually creating a series of many bookmarks. (A mass import may not have be appropriate if most bookmarks were duplicated and so not being transferred.) The HTML files are appended and do not overwrite the existing bookmarks.

You could then have worked within the library to drop and drag bookmarks or complete folders of bookmarks. If it helps you could have opened a second view of the bookmarks library in a tab. That may help if dealing with long lists &/or nested folders.

  • use: chrome://browser/content/places/places.xul

N.B.
If necessary it is possible to open two instances of Firefox of the same or another Version, as long as you use separate profiles, and on the secondary version use the -no-remote argument. As mentioned in the thread linked from the Original Post.