I want to restore my information on a computer that was recently reformatted
I recently had to have my computer reformatted due to a virus and want to restore firefox as it was before. I have mozilla backup, but the profile stored there is out of date. But I had been using firefox sync before the reformat, so theoretically the updated info is available. I just need to know how to access firefox sync on my newly reformatted computer and sync up firefox with sync.
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Did you print or save your Firefox Sync key? I think you will need that to retrieve your data.
General help article: How to sync Firefox settings between computers | How to | Firefox Help
Note: if you change your Sync key, that may wipe out your stored data.
I did save the sync key - and I solved my problem. I was thrown off by the fact that FF first seemed to want me to put in information from another machine. That "other machine" had, however, effectively been destroyed and I was just trying to put FF back on the recently-wiped computer. Fortunately, the Sync set-up had a link for people who could not access the other machine (I wish it had been clearer the first time). When I clicked on that, I was able to put in my sync account information and the sync key; when I restarted FF, there was all my information. It was like I had never had to reformat the computer.
I wish, however, that this had been explained in a more clear and logical manner. Considering that so many people have had this problem, it might be a good thing for the Powers That Be to look into
Thank you for reporting your results back!
Regarding the documentation, yep, this is such a new feature that it doesn't cover all of the use cases. If you have a spare hour, you can submit proposed edits to the existing knowledge base article, or propose a new one. The folks who maintain the articles could always use some help. Improve the Knowledge Base | How to contribute | Firefox Help.