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I exported my bookmarks to do a clean install, but now my exported file is nothing but pages of text. How can i retrieve my bookmarks?

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  • Last reply by Rohit_NL

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I backed up my firefox bookmars, and the file that came out of it is no specific file type. Even in the properties, it just says "File type: File".

So now i'm trying to restore my bookmarks, but I can't open that file. If i try opening the file itself with firefox or any other browser for that matter, I get long pages of text. It does contain my bookmarks, but it's really hard to read. What can i do to fix this?

I backed up my firefox bookmars, and the file that came out of it is no specific file type. Even in the properties, it just says "File type: File". So now i'm trying to restore my bookmarks, but I can't open that file. If i try opening the file itself with firefox or any other browser for that matter, I get long pages of text. It does contain my bookmarks, but it's really hard to read. What can i do to fix this?

Chosen solution

That is a JSON backup.
You need to rename the file and add a .json (lowercase) file extension to make Firefox recognize the file as a JSON backup.

Note that restoring a JSON backup will replace all existing bookmarks.

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All Replies (6)

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What's the content of the first line of that file?

Modified by the-edmeister

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Hello edmeister,

Thanks for the quick response. The first line is as follows:

{"title":"","id":1,"dateAdded":1380808141763000,"lastModified":1380820509035000,"type":"text/x-moz-place-container","root":"placesRoot","children":

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Chosen Solution

That is a JSON backup.
You need to rename the file and add a .json (lowercase) file extension to make Firefox recognize the file as a JSON backup.

Note that restoring a JSON backup will replace all existing bookmarks.

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If Windows is hiding common file extensions from you, you can turn that off to work with file names more accurately. This article refers to Windows Explorer, so you'll need to use the desktop for these steps: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/865219.

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If there is no file extension and you get "File type: File" then it is likely that you 'forgot' the check if the file got saved with the .json file extension as Firefox may not add the correct file extension automatically.

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Thank you all very much! Just renaming the file was sufficient though!

Thanks again! :)