Bookmarks backup folder is empty after renaming the profile
I use mac and I have three profiles on Firefox to separate different accounts on the same websites, and today I renamed one of them from finder instead of just using the rename option because it was an account name that I later changed (which was a stupid move, I should've just left it as is). However when I launched that profile all of my bookmarks, history and passwords in that profile had disappeared. I checked in finder and everything in my bookmarksbackup file had disappeared. I do have sync on but my bookmarks are not synced across profiles. Is there a way to restore my bookmarks?
Chosen solution
You should never rename a profile on the hard drive as that breaks the connection to the profile manager.
You can check profiles.ini to see what name the original profile has as Firefox likely created a new profile with the original name and this new profile doesn't have your personal data. You can remove the newly created profile and rename the profile to its original name as listed in profiles.ini.
Firefox uses two locations for the Firefox profile folder. One location for personal data like bookmarks and logins and another location for temporary files like the disk cache, you probably only renamed the profile folder in the root location and not in the secondary location.
Primary location used for the main profile that keeps your personal data (Root Directory on about:profiles).
- ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>
Secondary location used for the disk cache and other temporary files (Local Directory on about:profiles).
- ~/Library/Caches/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>
All Replies (2)
I don't really understand why those files would be erased/replaced. Seems more likely to me that Firefox would create a new profile folder if it couldn't figure out what happened behind its back. ??
You might need to look into Time Machine backups. I don't use a Mac, but my understanding is that you can access them from a menu in Finder while viewing the folder you want to roll back. However, you might need to rename the profile back to what it was before for the backup to match up?
Chosen Solution
You should never rename a profile on the hard drive as that breaks the connection to the profile manager.
You can check profiles.ini to see what name the original profile has as Firefox likely created a new profile with the original name and this new profile doesn't have your personal data. You can remove the newly created profile and rename the profile to its original name as listed in profiles.ini.
Firefox uses two locations for the Firefox profile folder. One location for personal data like bookmarks and logins and another location for temporary files like the disk cache, you probably only renamed the profile folder in the root location and not in the secondary location.
Primary location used for the main profile that keeps your personal data (Root Directory on about:profiles).
- ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>
Secondary location used for the disk cache and other temporary files (Local Directory on about:profiles).
- ~/Library/Caches/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>