Firefox Community Forum

This is from a reply I posted to one of the many others who are having this problem. They couldn't get the bookmarks to restore. It would say unable to process.

" I'm not technical so I apologize for my response. Maybe someone can make it more user friendly.

This is like the 4th time this has happened to me in the last year. Just long enough for me to forget what I did to get them back, but I think it has been different every time. Last time I think it just randomly processed after many attempts. I should probably try saving them myself. They aren't actually gone. I was able to remember some of the pages I bookmarked and when I went to those pages via the browser the little blue bookmark star was there and when I click on it the folder(now missing) I had it in was named. I just didn't have access to the list of folders. I also couldn't make new bookmarks.

Now this time I had already tried a PC restart and refreshing Firefox so I'm not sure that they are required steps. I opened Old Firefox Data folder. This was already on my desktop from previous issues I believe. The names of the folders inside are jumbled. I opened the one with the most recent date. Then opened the Bookmarkbackups folder. I selected the file with the most recent date (also the largest file because I'm terrible at deleting the old ones). I was asked what to open the file with, I double clicked on Firefox and a browser page opened and a window asked if I wanted to open with (application) or save the file. I chose to save the file. This process took a few minutes and locked windows up for a bit but when it was done my bookmarks were back. I am able to make new bookmarks as well but you'll have to search for where you want to save it instead of their being a drop down of the most recent folders.

I hope this works for you.

Just want to add that every time this has happened to me I was using Youtube. Now I've used Youtube a lot without this happening but every time it did happen I was there. </blockquote>

This NO LONGER WORKS. Not even a month later!

Apparently refreshing FireFox is required to see the latest bookmarkbackups file. However instead of saving to FireFox it now is a download to FireFox. So if I try to open the download it just goes back to the source and is a circular death loop that accomplishes nothing. Honestly seems kind of intentional at this point.

I did manually back up my book marks before this happened again for the 5th time now. However, when I tried to import them FireFox tells me the folder is empty. If I open the folder myself I see the long list of my bookmarks with corresponding links.

Like I said, I'm not technical, so I have no interest in continually finding a way to get the bookmarks to display again.

I've gone elsewhere. When I imported my book marks from FireFox most of them were there but some of the sub/sub folders were missing. So instead of their being 20 sub/sub folders theirs just a list of the hundreds maybe thousands of bookmarks that were in them. I have no interest in trying to reorganize that.

So I tried importing the manual back up I made that Firefox said was empty. That imported successfully and it appears all my book marks to the date I created the back up are there.

So FireFox get your %&$* together! Lots of topics about this so happening to lots of customers.

I am running Fedora 41 with firefox version 135.0.0-1.fc41

I have two linux accounts on my desktop tower computer, my account with gnome desktop and my wife's account with cinnamon desktop.

My wife has a bookmarks file in json format. It was created by her on her laptop. I checked that the json is valid with a json validator. She can not restore her bookmarks with this json file. She uses the "Import and Backup" command, then gets the mesage "This will replace all of your current bookmarks with the back. Are you sure?" After clicking OK, nothing happens - the bookmarks are not restored and there is no error message.

Otherwise, both accounts have no problems of any sort.

Please help.

Thank you, Joe

Apparently Firefox did an update (version 136.0.4) in the background while I was using Firefox on March 27. At some point I wanted to save a page to my bookmarks and realized all my bookmarks were missing. I had just used bookmarks earlier, so it had to have been an update. This happened to me before back in January 2025. I was without my bookmarks for several weeks when all of a sudden they showed up again.

I cannot use the instructions to go back to a previous profile, as the two options showing do not have my bookmarks, bookmark toolbar or customized Firefox homepage. I also cannot import my saved bookmarks to get them back. I get an error message when I attempt to do that option.

This is very frustrating, as I use my bookmarks, toolbar and customized homepage EVERY day. I have all my important links saved to bookmarks. Firefox developers need to find out why an update removes bookmarks, as this seems to be an ongoing issue with me. I've used Firefox for over 17+ years and never had bookmarks removed after an update before, so something in an update is causing this issue.

I have no idea at this point IF everything will return to normal in a few weeks like it did back in January. So right now I am without all my bookmarks. Please get this ongoing issue resolved, it's a royal pain. I need those bookmarks to maintain my daily routine for accessing financials, medical websites, etc.

Thanks for any help you can give me at this point. This is the second time it has happened.

Hi, my session with a lot of open tabs has been lost due to a crash. In the profile folder, the recovery and previous files in the sessionstore-backups have been deleted. I tried to recover them using shadow explorer, but these files are corrupted, so I've had no success reading them. Is there a way to fix the corrupted files? Alternatively, because I've had sync enabled for open tabs, is there a log for past open tab synchronizations? If this was stored on the cloud, it may be possible to retrieve that table and restore the list of open tabs that way?

An hour ago I had all of my Firefox bookmarks. Ten years of meticulously filed and regularly culled references that I use multiple times daily. I rarely log out of Firefox sync, so that I can keep them up to date.

I now have no bookmarks and no tags.

For some context, two things just happened simultaneously. So, I'm not entirely sure which is the culprit.

1) Firefox just updated and I rebooted my computer.

2) Norton 360 updated sometime in the past two days. I attempted to familiarise myself with the new interface. Foolishly, given the track record of Norton-360-for-breaking-your-games, I ran the disc cleanup, which recommended I remove approximately 400 Mb of data. Norton stated this data was temporary files. If they were indeed my bookmark history, nowhere did Norton indicate they were bookmarks. Also, never have I encountered a disc cleanup that wholesale wipes bookmarks. I do hope Norton is not the culprit and this is just a glitch, because if this were due to Norton having no safety net for deleting an entire library of bookmarks - and they can't help me restore them - then that will be the final nail in the coffin for me doing business with Norton.

The suggestion to go to Import and Backup in Firefox, then click Restore, offers only the option of Choose file... - and then launches nothing.

Currently, I'm seeking any means of restoring my bookmarks. Any help would be appreciated.

I had presumed that I was taking reasonable measures through my Firefox Sync settings to protect my bookmarks and ensure they could be restored in the event of accidents. If these bookmarks are permanently lost, the amount of work I've just lost is quite the blow.

Edit No. 01: After writing this, my Bookmarks Toolbar is also now empty. Perhaps it had wiped earlier, but was merely waiting for a refresh to take effect.

Edit No. 02: Also, it seems I am unable to create any new bookmarks. I shall read the help suggestions relating to that now, to see if it's a relevant issue.

Installed 134.0.2. Bookmarks disappeared. Went to restore backups, receive message "unable to process the backup file". All of my bookmark backup files receive this message when I try to restore.

I don't know whether this happened after an update - there was one a few days ago, but I only realised this morning, after switching on the computer, that all my bookmarks are missing. The toolbar is there, empty, only reading "For quick access, place your bookmarks here on the bookmarks toolbar"... I wish! I tried to restore the bookmarks - but it seems there is no backup to restore at all. Then I tried to check my profiles, but there is only the one currently in use. Then I tried to move a tab to the bookmarks toolbar - and nothing happened. Then I began to panic: toolbar apart, we're speaking about years of bookmarks, most of them related to my research for my books... All the advice in the support seems to point towards profiles and backups, but, as I said, it's clearly not my case... Please, please, please: help!

Hi, I recently purchased a new laptop and want to bring over the bookmarks I had from my old laptop. I had copied what I thought was the profile from the old one and copied it into the new laptop - but I'm not sure of the next steps :(.

Is it possible to restore firefox to a previous version to recover all my data? After update, all my firefox pages, tabs, bookmarks and history have vanished. Please help me recover or restore. Thank you!

Hello! Recently I experienced some massive issues with my pc and it needed service, it was uncovered that my drives crashed and the data is gone, they tried to restore it but its all corrupted therefore I cant get my bookmarks back in file form.

My account was synched so all my bookmarks surely are in cloud, today I got the pc back from repair, but my account only syncs bookmarks from the spare pc I used during the repair time and those bookmarks are outdated by two years, the pc which went under repair does pop up in the logged in devices list, so all the bookmarks that were there gotta be stored in the cloud, can you help me recover them?

Best regards Sarah

When my Firefox crashed today, I chose to restore it rather than troubleshoot. When it was done, my bookmarks icon had disappeared. Yet when I go to the individual websites, I can see that each one is still bookmarked. How can I restore the icon that used to be in the toolbar at top? Thank you for any help you can give. I have been using Firefox for many years now and this is the first time I encountered this problem.

Hello, Hi I recently updated (last night) and i didnt check all the boxes i clicked skip but NOW i can not recover any of the stuff from the night before is there a way u could help me ?!

Hi, I hope maybe there might be a ray of hope here but I royally screwed up. Like BIG time. I was having issues with my windows laptop & the microsoft guy said to do a factory reset but select the option to keep my files & everything will be fine. Which I did. I did the reset & logged into my Firefox, only to find that NONE of my passwards had saved. It had asked for a 32 Key code but I've had this account for years & years & years and have never once been given a 32 key code. I thought maybe it was an option for future password reset so just clicked on 'next'. Well my bad, that was the dumbest thing I've ever done because all my passwords have been wiped & I've only managed to recover a tiny handful but most of them seem to be gone for good. Is there any hope of recovering? I thought because I had a Firefox account then that would be that, everything would be saved in the that account. Really wish I knew about the code thing, I wouldn't set one up if I knew. I think my biggest lesson from this is don't full trust the Microsoft guy if he makes it sound super easy & fuss free!