Clarification: what I called the "comments" field, Firefox called the "description" field. The existence of this field is one of the main reasons I use Firefox over other browsers.

The description field has only been removed from the user interface in the Bookmarks Manager (Library) for now. This description field is still present in the places.sqlite database and you can export the bookmarks to an HTML file or create a JSON backup to have a backup copy that includes the descriptions.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/restore-bookmarks-from-backup-or-move-them

There are a lot of treads about this change that is also mentioned in the Firefox Release Notes.

• [/questions/1232448] Bookmark Descriptions Missing After Update?
• https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/62.0/releasenotes/

Thanks for the link. I commented on that other thread. The solutions mentioned there are a poor substitute for having the description field available. The automatically downloaded descriptions were useless to me, but the ability to add my own comments and access them from within the program was a MAJOR plus for me

I assume that there will be extensions created that will fill the gap.

This is incredibly upsetting and extremely reckless and high-handed behavior on part of the product management. No software company in its right mind would go ahead and simply destroy user data on purpose! I, too, have stored valuable data in these comments. There is zero intelligible technical reason to drop that field. Security paranoia possibly because the foundation wants to sell our bookmark data? Honestly, the person responsible for this decision deserves to be fired and has no business in influencing the direction of our beloved browser.

You can look at this extension:

• https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/bookmark-notes/

Hi StaticNoiseLog, I can understand your emotion about this. The data was not destroyed in Firefox 62. However, I'm not aware of any plans to make it accessible within the Firefox user interface again.

If you want to advocate for changes in Firefox to compensate for the loss of this feature, you can submit suggestions through one or more of the following links:

• Feedback: https://qsurvey.mozilla.com/s3/FirefoxInput/
• Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/
• Discourse: https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/firefox-development
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/firefox
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Firefox

Although the following duplicates part of this thread, I'm going to paste my full write-up on this issue, and you can use whichever information sounds most relevant to you.

Step 1: Back up your Descriptions by Exporting your Bookmarks

Firefox 62 no longer shows the "Description" field for bookmarks. The data is still stored, but can't be viewed within Firefox. I suggest backing it up now because the plan is to remove it in Firefox 64.

To do that, you can export bookmarks to a locally saved web page (HTML File). Please see this article: Export Firefox bookmarks to an HTML file to back up or transfer bookmarks.

That creates a web page, so you can open it in a Firefox tab, or in any browser. You'll notice the descriptions nested below the linked titles of the bookmarks that have descriptions. You can use Find (Ctrl+f) to locate the bookmark you're looking for.

Next steps:

This will depend on your needs.

(A) If you just need to consult the existing descriptions from time to time: searching in and copy/pasting from the HTML file may be good enough.

(B) If you need to access descriptions within Firefox, and prefer not to downgrade: you could investigate new extensions. For example, https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/bookmark-notes/ will provide access to Descriptions in the sidebar, and can import the file you created in Step 1.

(C) If you need to occasionally update the descriptions, but don't need them within Firefox: you could consider using a reference program such as Zotero to store your bookmarks and descriptions. See: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1233617. This form of storage might be more resilient than an add-on if you don't make regular backups of your Firefox profile data, and cloud storage is optional.

(D) If you can't live without descriptions just the way they were in Firefox 60: you may consider the Extended Support Release of Firefox 60, also known as ESR. The ESR track was designed for companies that only want feature changes on an infrequent basis. So Firefox 60 ESR will only get security updates for the next 10-12 months, staying stable with the features of Firefox 60. Then ESR will jump to a new version, expected to be Firefox 68. We don't know what Firefox 68 will look like; it might not have descriptions, either.

More info on this option: Switch to Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) for personal use.

@jscher2000: Thank you very much for your considerate and helpful answer! I have exported my bookmarks to HTML and was able to find a comment I needed yesterday in that file.

I will try to contribute my wishes through the links you have provided.

jmcnerney said

I'm running Firefox 62.0 on macOS 10.13.6. If I remember correctly, I recently upgraded to Firefox 62.0 I have many years worth of important comments stored in the comments field of my Firefox bookmarks. When I opened the "Show All Bookmarks" page today, the comment field is not showing up for any of my bookmarks. What happened? How do I get Firefox to display my comments again?

I use the comments field to store password hints for each website that I had one for. It was east to right click on the bookmark and read the comment for the password.