Firefox Help

Posted by: tanstaafl.

Firefox Help - 31/03/2021 18:05

I had to reinstall Windows 10, and am slowly reinstalling software on an as-needed basis. I have a directory on my primary data disk that has an individual folder for every piece of software I have downloaded over the last 15 years, containing the installation file and any necessary serial numbers/installation keys, so this is not the impossible chore it might otherwise have been. Yes, I know -- more than 90% of those 600+ programs will never again see the light of day, but storage is cheap and you never know...

Anyway, things are going along well, but I have one problem (so far!) that I am unable to solve.

My Windows reinstall included a new installation of Firefox, which is working as it should, except of course all my boomarks and toolbar links are gone.

I have a file-by-file backup of my C: drive (excluding the Windows directory of course) containing among other things the complete Mozilla Firefox directory from before the Windows reinstall. Somewhere in that backup I am sure are my bookmarks.

I had hoped that there would be some obvious thing I could do, like find the file that said "Bookmarks.html" or something and copy that over the matching file in the new installation. That appears not to be the case.

The bookmark recovery options I find through Google all seem to involve making a copy of the bookmarks through Firefox before reinstalling it, and then using the new Firefox to import the saved file.

Is there a reasonably simple way of getting my old bookmarks into the new installation?

tanstaafl.
Posted by: canuckInOR

Re: Firefox Help - 31/03/2021 21:40

I don't know if the formats are compatible or not, but your bookmarks are all stored in the firefox profile. So perhaps you can find your old profile, and copy it to the new location?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data

That links to another page with a section specifically about restoring bookmarks after upgrading Windows 10...

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

Re: Firefox Help - 02/04/2021 19:03

Just copying the profile in, overwriting the new default folder, works great. Everything is back.
Posted by: Mr_Maniacal

Re: Firefox Help - 08/04/2021 14:37

only advice I can give is this. when I had to switch computers all the bookmarks are stored in a json file. so search for *.json. So I have a list of bookmarked files. I mean there are other json files used for other things as well.