How to transfer bookmarks from earlier version to new version of FF?
Hi, I've had Firefox 64 bit running on Windows for a while and recently was given a newer machine where I installed a newer version of the OS. I put the old HDD's as slaves in this new machine. So the old FF is in the slave machine.
I have also installed new Firefox on this new Win10 LTSC, but when I go looking in my now slave HDD I can see FF, but cannot see any bookmarks. Additionally, when I run the FF executable in the old HDD it still runs the new FF, without the old bookmarks.
So how can I extract the old bookmarks on the older FF? Without withdrawing the now slave HDD and making it a master again? As it's now missing most of the OS files too.
Thank you!
Chosen solution
To explore the Users folder on your old drive, first make sure Windows is set to show hidden files and folders:
Next, I'll call it the E drive, click up this path (the part in <> varies between installations):
E:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<something.something>\bookmarkbackups
These compressed backup files are made approximately daily (if your bookmarks changed often), and have the creation date coded into their names. So hopefully you can find the last two backups. I suggest copy/pasting them to your current Windows desktop for easier access.
Then to apply one of those backups to your currently running installation of Firefox, see the steps in the following article (you'll need to use "Choose file" to point Firefox at the files you recovered):
Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer
Success?
Read this answer in context 👍 1All Replies (7)
Keep it simple... Sync
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/sync-custom-preferences https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-set-sync-my-computer?redirectslug=firefox-sync-take-your-bookmarks-and-tabs-with-you&redirectlocale=en-US https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-choose-what-information-sync-firefox
See these support articles.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data#w_what-information-is-stored-in-my-profile
You should backup your data. Sync is not a backup.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
Neither of these options worked for me. However I did find a copy of a 3 year old bookmarks.json file. That restored it back up to early January 2020, meaning missing nearly 3 years of bookmarks, but better than nothing. Thank you both regardless!
This (https://support.mozilla.org/fr/questions/910241) sounds promising. Might give it a whirl regardless to see what difference it makes?
Mentioned in the first two links I quoted.
Chosen Solution
To explore the Users folder on your old drive, first make sure Windows is set to show hidden files and folders:
Next, I'll call it the E drive, click up this path (the part in <> varies between installations):
E:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<something.something>\bookmarkbackups
These compressed backup files are made approximately daily (if your bookmarks changed often), and have the creation date coded into their names. So hopefully you can find the last two backups. I suggest copy/pasting them to your current Windows desktop for easier access.
Then to apply one of those backups to your currently running installation of Firefox, see the steps in the following article (you'll need to use "Choose file" to point Firefox at the files you recovered):
Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer
Success?
Thank you to all who helped, and particularly @jscher2000. I managed to find all the recent automatically generated bookmarks right up till Nov the 30th this year, and only two days later my friend gave me this machine.
I followed @jscher2000's steps, to find the Nov 30th bookmark at the end, copied it to my desktop, and then > Open Application Menu > Bookmarks > Manage Bookmarks > Restore > Choose file > Desktop > bookmarks~<long filename>.jsonlz4
Thank you very much!
And now onto my next challenge.