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Recovering bookmarks from an older version of Firefox

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  • Last reply by FredMcD

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Hello there. Having used Firefox as my preferred browser under Windows 8 for a number of years, I have amassed a large number of bookmarks. I subsequently upgraded the laptop to Windows 10, and have not used Firefox for some time, not having needed the internet for much other than email. When I went to launch Firefox recently, the shortcut didn't work, so I updated to the new version of Firefox and found all of the bookmarks had gone. I was advised to look for 'bookmarks.html', but I have been unable to find such a file. Please advise if it is possible to recover the old bookmarks on the computer? Thanks M

Hello there. Having used Firefox as my preferred browser under Windows 8 for a number of years, I have amassed a large number of bookmarks. I subsequently upgraded the laptop to Windows 10, and have not used Firefox for some time, not having needed the internet for much other than email. When I went to launch Firefox recently, the shortcut didn't work, so I updated to the new version of Firefox and found all of the bookmarks had gone. I was advised to look for 'bookmarks.html', but I have been unable to find such a file. Please advise if it is possible to recover the old bookmarks on the computer? Thanks M

Chosen solution

Hi Michael, did you ever use Firefox successfully -- with the missing bookmarks -- after your Windows 10 update?

Sometimes if you haven't used Firefox in a long time, the updater will suggest a Refresh or "tune-up." If you do that, your old profile folder will be moved to your Windows desktop inside an Old Firefox Data folder. Do you see one of those?

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What about the rest of your profile? Settings, bookmarks, history, passwords . . . . ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Firefox automatically makes backups of the bookmarks. These are stored in the bookmarkbackups folder.

Open the Bookmarks Manager; Press the Alt or F10 key to bring up the toolbar, and select Bookmarks. Hot key is <Control> (Mac=<Command>) <Shift> B.

Once the window is open, at the top of the page, press the button labeled Import and Backup. Select Restore. From the list, pick the file you want and click it.

The backups are stored in a jsonlz4 file named something like this; bookmarks-2016-06-29_1424_enD1GTH ya0JmicnYWg4V4g==.jsonlz4

In this example; 2016-06-29 = date created, 1424 = number of entries.

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

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recover-lost-or-missing-bookmarks

https://support.mozilla.org/kb/forum-response-recover-bookmarks-after-update

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Chosen Solution

Hi Michael, did you ever use Firefox successfully -- with the missing bookmarks -- after your Windows 10 update?

Sometimes if you haven't used Firefox in a long time, the updater will suggest a Refresh or "tune-up." If you do that, your old profile folder will be moved to your Windows desktop inside an Old Firefox Data folder. Do you see one of those?

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Having just updated the app, my computer was asking me to restart, and after I restarted I began to see the relevant details you have described. Thank you so much for your help, I'm good to go.

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