Firefox Community Forum

My Windows 10 PC died - I was able to recover the data on the hard drive using an enclosure.

Bought a new PC with Windows 11 preinstalled and want to restore my configuration

Things I want restored:

Extensions with their settings (particularly Noscript /uBlock custom filters)

Bookmarks with their icons

How can I achieve this ?

I never had sync set up so that’s not an option

Can I just copy the entire account over wholesale or at least the folders containing the extension info ?

I used a temp boot of Zorin to copy my files out of the old hard drive as Windows seemed to have difficulty ‘gaining permission’ to my old profile.

I want to keep a parallel install of Linux (Mint or Zorin) - how do I transfer my settings over there ?

Lastly would running a parallel Windows 10 install help me restore my settings if nothing else works ?

Thanks

Good evening.

I leave my windows and tabs open and turn off my computer by clicking the shut down button on Windows 10. The next day I open Firefox and all my windows and tabs come back with no problem. I've been doing this for a few years and I gathered dozens of Firefox windows and hundreds of tabs. Now that I'm finally ready to organize what I've been putting off I noticed that most of these old tabs disappeared in a very weird way. When I open Firefox it still opens all windows from these past years but it loads most older windows with a single tab and these single tabs are all in the New Tab state. I'm sure that these used to be unique tabs with content in them and not New Tabs and I'm also sure that these windows had many tabs each and not just one.

The tabs have the name "New Tab" on the tabs bar and they're gray and empty, which is what I set all my new tabs to be, so they're regular New Tabs aside from the being lighter gray than a true new tab page. Refreshing and F5 have no effect. I can't go back a page or forward because the arrows are grayed out. I can't figure out what these tabs used to be by browsing my history because they've been added to the pile sporadically over the years and are mixed with other web pages, most of which I don't want to open again, so searching for all of them would be too hard. Tab groups that only contained these "New Tab'd" tabs have also disappeared and can't be found on the tab groups list menu. If I go to "View recent browsing across windows and devices" and then "Open tabs" these tabs are shown as "New Tab" and if I click the three dots menu and select "Copy link" it copies "about:blank".

Though this is not the most specific fix, I went to Firefox>Profiles>(Profile name)>sessionstore-backups and (after making a backup) deleted all files from there except for the one with the oldest modified date. I did this with Firefox closed and then I opened it and a few of my old "New Tab" windows became real windows again with multiple tabs inside. Curiously, the recovered windows and tabs were not the most recent ones that were affected by this problem and most windows are still lost in the New Tab state.

I think Firefox has been failing to restore older parts of my session but only kind of because it still recognizes the total number of windows I had but then it opens many of them with no content (a single New Tab) and no memory (arrows grayed out).

I've always updated Firefox throughout the years and I don't know when the problem started happening, it might have started months ago and I just didn't notice because I stored the tabs and didn't look at them again until now. I also noticed that windows that were in my most recent and most used desktop instance were fine while windows in my "storage" desktops were more likely to get "new tabbed", but maybe it's unrelated to desktop environments and only related to how recent windows are and most of my newer windows are in the newest desktop, but I can't know for sure because sometimes some windows move around desktops after a PC shutdown so it's impossible to know if windows are sorted between desktops 100% by age, I think it's a Windows 10 problem. Also there have been some forceful PC shutdowns over the months due to power outages, and I have removed my drive and used a different drive with a different OS a few times, always switching with the PC turned off.

Does anyone know how to get Firefox to remember my full session and find out what these fake new tabs used to be? If not, is there a way I can restore my session to a state that it was previously like months ago? I would need something more powerful than the sessionstore-backups folder because it only helps me roll back a few weeks. I have backups from the bookmarks windows (ctrl+shift+O) but I don't think they save active open tabs. Just curious, do they save browser history? It wouldn't help me in this case as I mentioned before but it's good to know.

Thanks for your help and sorry if it's overexplained.

last time my firefox crashed when i was using it and when i reopened my browser all of my history were deleted and they keep telling me that some sort of file is not able to save the bookmarks and history

Help! My bookmarks tool bar is missing & I cant recover it because your instructions for locating the menu bar don't match what your instructions display. There is NO AltGr displays a bookmark menu BUT I CANT MOVE IT TO MY TOOL BAR. There is NO selected tab, NO menu bar; NO bookmark tool displayed. I have also lost all of my downloads. This has happened in the last month; everything was fine. I am 82 years old & NOT a techie so expect better help than I have received so far during the last frustrating 2 hours of trying to follow Firefox instructions that DO NOT APPLY TO ME. Also the "add images" function @ bottom of this page won't let me send you a copy of the instructions you display to select the bookmark menu bar ... I click on the picture of the problem & nothing happens ... just dead no access to select pictures either.

I have NOT changed my internet provider; I have not changed any settings. This all happened two weeks ago. Called internet provider & they said it was Firefox issue!!! Very unhappy.

Why cant I access "ask a question" anymore as no link appears. How do I contact someone as the community has locked the thread concerning lost bookmarks. I need those bookmarks back!

I started a new conversation because all of my bookmarks have disappeared. I have five years of important bookmarks which I assumed would be kept in bookmarks. Now only the one bookmark I made today is available. Also Alt and AltGr does not link to anything. This happened in the last month. Also the "add images" link on this link is not functional anymore; I cannot select a picture either. I have Windows 10 and my system lacks the capability to upgrade to Windows 11 even if want to. Firefox says it will continue to support Windows 10 but something must have changed in the last several weeks. dona bretherick

Hi!

I appreciate all the work put into developing 155, and I can't keep up. I'd like to get my book marks back. How can I return to an earlier version, unless you know a way I can get them in 155, Thank you! BTW I'm using Windows 10.

Hello I've made backup file today before uninstaling my OS. Now I want to restore data afrer reinstalling my OS, but I keep getting error. Error added. Please help me to restore my data!

After a update 154.0.1 and 155.0.1, 64 byt Firefox dod not keep the open tabs once started, but the bookmarks. After searching in Firefox help, neither I could not find a previous bakup folder, before the update data, so I cannot restore the history it manually, so I do not know what to do. It is quite dissapointing as I had dozens of tabs open for diferent putposes, and now I have no one

i have made sure that all the settings do not force signing out, all settings include save passwords/bookmarks etc.

But... when I close firefox Im forced to sign in when I reopen the browser, it also looses all my bookmarks and passwords and I have to re-import them from the firefox backup.

I have deleted various temp files and force firefox to create new ones.

Can't get around this. It becoming such a farce that I'll abandon firefox and go to Opera!!!

Carleton

I installed and update this morning, September 7, 2026, but now all my previously saved bookmarks (prior to September 7, 2026) are not accessible or shown. How do I recover all of them?

I am trying to restore my firefox bookmarks and passwords from a back up I saved. I am signed into firefox in my browser, I go to restore back up and firefox restars and my bookmarks appearm but I'm signed out of firefox. When I sign back in, my profiles and bookmarks disappear?