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Unsorted bookmarks in Other Bookmarks disappeared after restore, tried several versions can't get them back

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

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My troubles began when I accidentally deleted a bookmarks folder. I wasn't aware of the undo button, so when I googled and saw the restore bookmarks plan, I followed it. The restore froze firefox and I had to close it. Undo option, gone.

Anyway, the folder is small fry now. The closest restore was 12/31 at 1:00 AM, with the most items, and everything seems good, so I chose that one. Unfortunately, when it actually restores, none of the unsorted bookmarks (a year's worth) appears. There's nothing in the Other Bookmarks category no matter which restore version I try. Also, even though the best choice 12/31 restore matches up in time, it only shows bookmarks up to 12/23. I'm really not sure what to do.

My troubles began when I accidentally deleted a bookmarks folder. I wasn't aware of the undo button, so when I googled and saw the restore bookmarks plan, I followed it. The restore froze firefox and I had to close it. Undo option, gone. Anyway, the folder is small fry now. The closest restore was 12/31 at 1:00 AM, with the most items, and everything seems good, so I chose that one. Unfortunately, when it actually restores, none of the unsorted bookmarks (a year's worth) appears. There's nothing in the Other Bookmarks category no matter which restore version I try. Also, even though the best choice 12/31 restore matches up in time, it only shows bookmarks up to 12/23. I'm really not sure what to do.

All Replies (3)

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Other Bookmarks replaced Unsorted Bookmarks back in Firefox 55 or 56. Essentially the same type of folder with very slight differences in how they work and what "feeds" them.

The Unsorted Bookmarks folder was carried forward when Other Bookmarks was added to the then current Places file; where bookmarks and history data is stored. But restoring a bookmarks backup file that was created after that change would have eliminated the Unsorted Bookmarks folder - but - I would be very surprised if the actual bookmarks from the old Unsorted Bookmarks folder are gone. Probably sitting in the Bookmarks Menu folder as "loose" bookmarks or merged into another folder.

Problem is that I can't verify that surmission - the "change" happened so long ago; my one remaining old Firefox 56 Profile got a Refresh during the 6 weeks that Firefox 56 was the latest Release version.

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To check the contents of the backup, could you:

(1) Open your bookmarkbackups folder in your profile folder*

(2) Drag and drop the most promising backup onto this tool:

https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/bookbackreader.html

(3) Then click Export HTML to create a web page export of the backup

(4) Open the HTML export in Firefox (clicking it on the bookmarks toolbar button drop-panel is fastest) and after the page loads fully, use Find to search for "Other Bookmarks" in the page and see whether the missing bookmarks are listed after that.

Any luck?


* For Step #1:

You can open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either

  • "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
  • (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
  • type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, click the "Open Folder" button. This should launch a new window listing various files and folders in Windows Explorer.

Resize this window so you can see enough of Firefox behind it to drag and drop a file.

Then double-click into the bookmarkbackups folder.

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The name of an automatically created JSON bookmarks backup in the bookmarkbackups folder includes a total item count (folders and separators included) and an hash value to prevent saving the same backup more than once.

  • bookmarks-YYYY-MM-DD_<item count>_<hash>.jsonlz4.

You can check if you have an "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop in case the Refresh feature in Firefox has been used and a new profile has been created.