Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

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

Èròjà atẹ̀lélànà yii ni a ti fi pamọ́ fọ́jọ́ pípẹ́. Jọ̀wọ́ béèrè ìbéèrè titun bí o bá nílò ìrànwọ́.

fix your bookmarks backup option so that if you backup you can resave to another computer or the same computer as an overwrite, keeping the existing bookmarks?

more options

I would like to see your backup option updated so that if you backup you can resave to another computer or the same computer as an overwrite, keeping the existing bookmarks? It could just be an overwrite. I hate to lost existing bookmarks by using a backup that will wipe them out. The backup should add any new bookmarks and not wipe out existing ones.

I would like to see your backup option updated so that if you backup you can resave to another computer or the same computer as an overwrite, keeping the existing bookmarks? It could just be an overwrite. I hate to lost existing bookmarks by using a backup that will wipe them out. The backup should add any new bookmarks and not wipe out existing ones.

All Replies (2)

more options

Restoring a JSON backup will always replace the currently existing bookmarks. Importing an HTML backup will merge the bookmarks with existing bookmarks. You need to create an HTML backup before restoring a JSON backup to be able to restore bookmarks you currently have.

more options

Just to spell that out, and recognizing that yes, it's arduous...

If you need to preserve existing bookmarks when doing a Restore, then add the optional steps on this list:

  1. (Optional) Export recently-added bookmarks: Export Firefox bookmarks to an HTML file to back up or transfer bookmarks
  2. Restore your older backup: Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer -- use the Choose File item to point Firefox to the old file; if Firefox can't restore it, you may need to change the file extension to .json and try again.
  3. (Optional) Import the recently-added bookmarks: Import Bookmarks from an HTML file
  4. (Optional) Reorganize the imported bookmarks into logical locations (they might be in an Imported Bookmarks folder on the menu or in Unsorted bookmarks)

It would be really cool if: the restore feature could ask you whether you wanted to preserve bookmarks, do an automatic export, then do an import and de-duplicate everything. But... in my opinion it's unlikely to happen. Someone with a passion for it would need to step forward and write the code for that. And I suspect it would launch much sooner as an extension than a built-in feature.

In part, I base that view on the migration of sharing features to cloud-based services. Schlepping files around is inconvenient, and hard to make compatible with mobile, so I don't think it will be prioritized.