Transferring bookmarks from old hard drive to new pc
Hello,
My old PC crashed and I want to transfer my bookmarks from the old hard drive to my new PC running windows 11. I have unlocked hidden files, but when I ran drive:\Users\username\AppData\roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles nothing came up. I then ran places.sqlite and a list of places.sqlite appeared with some files having -wal &-shm after them?
I believe from reading here this is where my bookmarks are?
If so, how do I transfer them to my existing PC hard drive to use please? Many thanks Chris
Chosen solution
Hi Chris, start in Profiles and try exploring manually from there because...
We do not know the name of a specific <profile.folder> because it is partially randomized and partially user-configurable.
The first part is alphanumeric like
a23bu6za
Then there is a dot. Then the second part is readable, like
- default
- default-release
- Mom-and-Dad
You'll need to look inside each of the folders under Profiles and see what is in their bookmarkbackups folders to find the most promising backup to restore.
Read this answer in context 👍 2All Replies (5)
Hi Chris, there is a simpler method for bookmarks:
(1) Locate compressed backup file (steps below) (2) Use the Restore feature to replace current bookmarks with the backup (steps below)
Part One: Find the old bookmarkbackups folder in the profile:
drive:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile.folder>\bookmarkbackups
Folder location notes: Note #1: "username" needs to be your old Windows username, which may differ from your current Windows user name. You can try all of the paths in the old drive:\Users folder until you determine which one is correct. Note #2: If you were using the version of Firefox installed from the Windows store, the profile folder is in a very obscure location that I haven't checked for myself, but which I have read is here: drive:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Packages\Mozilla.Firefox_n80bbvh6b1yt2\LocalCache\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile.folder>\bookmarkbackups
Within the bookmarkbackups folder, the file creation date and item count are embedded in the file names so you can assess which ones are the most promising to try.
Copy paste one or two of those older .jsonlz4 files to your live desktop.
Part Two: Try the steps in the following article. When you get to the Restore menu, use "Choose file" to point Firefox to the file(s) on your desktop:
Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer
Success?
Quote: drive:\Users\username\AppData\roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
Were you previously possibly using MSIX Firefox from the Microsoft Store as that version has its profile in a different location ?
- C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Packages\Mozilla.Firefox_xxxxxxxxxxxxx\LocalCache\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox
Hi
Thanks for your replies. I downloaded Firefox from the site direct Hi jscher2000, AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile.folder>\bookmarkbackups (what is <profile folder> in this line please. I copied and pasted the whole line and nothing came up When I searched for places:sqlite, various files came up under drive:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
Appreciate all the help here. Thanks
Chris
Chosen Solution
Hi Chris, start in Profiles and try exploring manually from there because...
We do not know the name of a specific <profile.folder> because it is partially randomized and partially user-configurable.
The first part is alphanumeric like
a23bu6za
Then there is a dot. Then the second part is readable, like
- default
- default-release
- Mom-and-Dad
You'll need to look inside each of the folders under Profiles and see what is in their bookmarkbackups folders to find the most promising backup to restore.
Hi Jefferson,
Many thanks for your invaluable help, all sorted.
Thank you
Chris