You may discover that Firefox has apparently lost your bookmarks but, in most cases, your bookmarks are not lost. This article explains the main reasons why your bookmarks may appear to be missing and how to recover them.

• If you are able to add, delete, and edit your bookmarks but the changes are lost when you restart Firefox, see Can't add, change or save bookmarks - How to fix.
• To recover bookmarks that were previously saved but are now missing, see Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer.

Missing Bookmarks Toolbar

If you were using the Bookmarks Toolbar for quick access to your favorite bookmarks and the toolbar is now missing, you may have turned off the option to display the Bookmarks Toolbar. To turn it back on:

For more information, see the Bookmarks Toolbar - Display your favorite websites at the top of the Firefox window article.

Missing Google bookmarks

To access your current Google Bookmarks, just go to www.google.com/bookmarks. Once you are there, you can export your Google Bookmarks and import them into Firefox if you wish. For more, see Google Toolbar is no longer compatible with Firefox - Here are some alternatives.

Unable to find your bookmarks after importing them

If you have imported your bookmarks from another browser, they may appear in the Bookmarks menu in a specific folder. To find your imported bookmarks, do the following:

1. Click the menu button to open the menu panel. Click Bookmarks and then click the Manage bookmarks bar at the bottom.

• Depending on the type of browser from which you imported, your bookmarks may appear in a specially named folder in the Bookmarks list.
  • Internet Explorer. Folder name is From Internet Explorer.
  • Opera. Folder name is From Opera.
  • Bookmarks imported from other browsers follow a similar pattern.
• If your source bookmarks were stored in a hierarchy of folders, the folder structure is preserved inside the specially named folder.

If desired, you can move your imported bookmarks to other folders. For more information, see Bookmarks in Firefox.

Default set of bookmarks is shown in the Bookmarks folder

Your bookmarks are associated with the profile that you are using. For most Firefox users, the only profile used is the default one. There may be instances when Firefox may create you a new profile. When this new profile is activated, it contains the default set of bookmarks, which may give you the impression that you have lost your personal bookmarks. This troubleshooting sequence helps you to identify if a new profile has been created and how to recover your bookmarks from the previous one.

Determining if Firefox has created a new profile

1. Go to the Firefox profile folder.
   • For Firefox profile locations, see the Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data article.
2. If there is only one profile folder, then stop.
   Note: Each profile folder is named something like the following:
   xxxxxxxx.<ProfileName>
   where xxxxxxxx represents a random string of 8 characters and <ProfileName> corresponds to the name of the profile. For example, the folder containing the default profile is named xxxxxxxx.default.
3. If you have multiple profile folders in this location, then you have multiple profiles. If you have more than one profile folder, then it is likely that Firefox has made you a new profile. In this case, you must instruct Firefox to use the profile containing your saved bookmarks by opening the Firefox Profile Manager and choosing the right profile. See the Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles article for details.

Based on information from Lost bookmarks (mozillaZine KB)