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had to install new operating system and bookmarks are gone

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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Hiya. I had issues with computer and the fix was to install a new operating system (windows 7 was old, windows 8 is the new). Most of my old files made the transfer but when I downloaded firefox, my bookmarks were gone. I looked under my profile in the menu, but it was the profile I created today by downloading firefox. Where can i find my old profile? Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks, Billy

Hiya. I had issues with computer and the fix was to install a new operating system (windows 7 was old, windows 8 is the new). Most of my old files made the transfer but when I downloaded firefox, my bookmarks were gone. I looked under my profile in the menu, but it was the profile I created today by downloading firefox. Where can i find my old profile? Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks, Billy

Chosen solution

Was this an "in-place" type of upgrade where your user folder

C:\Users\youroldusername\

was untouched, or did you end up with a new user folder? In the case of a new user folder, can you find a folder named

C:\Windows.old\Users\youroldusername\

If so, your Firefox data probably is in there -- and here is how I suggest accessing it:

First, it would be helpful to set Windows to show hidden files and folders. This article has the steps: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hidden-files

Then click into:

C:\Windows.old\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

Note: there is a cache folder under AppData\Local, but all the important stuff is under AppData\Roaming.

Here you may find one or more semi-randomly named folders. The one with the most recently updated contents probably is the one you want to restore.

This post has my suggested procedure for resurrecting that data in your new installation of Firefox. Please note the use of copy instead of move throughout the process. This allows you to try again if it fails somewhere along the way.

https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1024189#answer-638319

Any luck?

Note, if you really ONLY want bookmarks, copy the two latest backups from the old bookmarkbackups folder to a convenient location such as the desktop, then see this article (you'll use "Choose file" on the menu to get to those backups): Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer. Note that this process will replace any new bookmarks you might have saved since installing Firefox again. If you need to preserve those, use the export feature first: Export Firefox bookmarks to an HTML file to back up or transfer bookmarks.

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Chosen Solution

Was this an "in-place" type of upgrade where your user folder

C:\Users\youroldusername\

was untouched, or did you end up with a new user folder? In the case of a new user folder, can you find a folder named

C:\Windows.old\Users\youroldusername\

If so, your Firefox data probably is in there -- and here is how I suggest accessing it:

First, it would be helpful to set Windows to show hidden files and folders. This article has the steps: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hidden-files

Then click into:

C:\Windows.old\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

Note: there is a cache folder under AppData\Local, but all the important stuff is under AppData\Roaming.

Here you may find one or more semi-randomly named folders. The one with the most recently updated contents probably is the one you want to restore.

This post has my suggested procedure for resurrecting that data in your new installation of Firefox. Please note the use of copy instead of move throughout the process. This allows you to try again if it fails somewhere along the way.

https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1024189#answer-638319

Any luck?

Note, if you really ONLY want bookmarks, copy the two latest backups from the old bookmarkbackups folder to a convenient location such as the desktop, then see this article (you'll use "Choose file" on the menu to get to those backups): Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer. Note that this process will replace any new bookmarks you might have saved since installing Firefox again. If you need to preserve those, use the export feature first: Export Firefox bookmarks to an HTML file to back up or transfer bookmarks.

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Note that the name of a JSON bookmarks backup file includes a total item count (folders and separators included) and an hash value to prevent saving the same backup more than once.

  • bookmarks-YYYY-MM-DD_<item count>_<hash>.jsonlz4.