Firefox Community Forum

An hour ago I had all of my Firefox bookmarks. Ten years of meticulously filed and regularly culled references that I use multiple times daily. I rarely log out of Firefox sync, so that I can keep them up to date.

I now have no bookmarks and no tags.

For some context, two things just happened simultaneously. So, I'm not entirely sure which is the culprit.

1) Firefox just updated and I rebooted my computer.

2) Norton 360 updated sometime in the past two days. I attempted to familiarise myself with the new interface. Foolishly, given the track record of Norton-360-for-breaking-your-games, I ran the disc cleanup, which recommended I remove approximately 400 Mb of data. Norton stated this data was temporary files. If they were indeed my bookmark history, nowhere did Norton indicate they were bookmarks. Also, never have I encountered a disc cleanup that wholesale wipes bookmarks. I do hope Norton is not the culprit and this is just a glitch, because if this were due to Norton having no safety net for deleting an entire library of bookmarks - and they can't help me restore them - then that will be the final nail in the coffin for me doing business with Norton.

The suggestion to go to Import and Backup in Firefox, then click Restore, offers only the option of Choose file... - and then launches nothing.

Currently, I'm seeking any means of restoring my bookmarks. Any help would be appreciated.

I had presumed that I was taking reasonable measures through my Firefox Sync settings to protect my bookmarks and ensure they could be restored in the event of accidents. If these bookmarks are permanently lost, the amount of work I've just lost is quite the blow.

Edit No. 01: After writing this, my Bookmarks Toolbar is also now empty. Perhaps it had wiped earlier, but was merely waiting for a refresh to take effect.

Edit No. 02: Also, it seems I am unable to create any new bookmarks. I shall read the help suggestions relating to that now, to see if it's a relevant issue.

Hi

I've just booted my machine and opened Firefox, only to be presented with a completely fresh install.

All my settings, bookmarks and history gone. It was fine yesterday when I closed it and powered down.

I'm running Kubuntu, I've checked the .mozilla folder and nothing...it's like my profile has just been overwritten.

Not happy at all, I'm starting to dislike Firefox.

Can anyone offer any help or advice please?

Thanks in advance.

Hello,

I'm writing because I’ve encountered an issue with the tab groups feature in Firefox.

Some time ago, after a browser update, I noticed a new feature that allowed me to group tabs thematically — I could name each group (e.g., "Study", "Work"), choose a color for it, and save and close groups to reopen them later. I found it very useful and used it a lot.

Last night, I decided to declutter my browser and closed several tab groups using the built-in menu. A bit later, I shut down my computer, but perhaps too quickly. This morning, when I turned my computer back on, Firefox was very slow to start. After a restart, everything seemed to work fine again, and the open tabs were restored.

However, all my previously saved (but temporarily closed) tab groups disappeared. In the tab group menu, I can now only see the ones currently open. I’ve searched through all the settings and history but cannot find any way to restore the missing groups.

Is there any way to recover the tab groups that I had previously saved and closed?

Thank you very much in advance!

I had a lot of tabs open in Firefox, and they always stayed there even after restarting my PC. But suddenly, all of my tabs disappeared, and I can’t recover them using “Recently Closed Tabs.” Can I get them back?

items dragged to overflow menu pop back out, will not stay there - dunno how to fix this.

Hate the "puzzle piece." Involuntarily upgraded to 115.25.0esr and it lost all my bookmarks, addons, history. How do I know which profile was the most recent, before the update added a new profile? How do I find my addons from the previous version? history?

Today I opened Mozilla at my laptop. It malfunctioned (videos froze, pages did not fully download), so I closed the window and after a couple of seconds I reopened it. My previous session was gone. I read your articles regarding this issue, did what was described there, but nothing has changes. I lost everything! Job videos, hobby pages - everything! A couple of pages can be restored via history, but that's it! I didn't do anything special before closing the window!

Hi, my session with a lot of open tabs has been lost due to a crash. In the profile folder, the recovery and previous files in the sessionstore-backups have been deleted. I tried to recover them using shadow explorer, but these files are corrupted, so I've had no success reading them. Is there a way to fix the corrupted files? Alternatively, because I've had sync enabled for open tabs, is there a log for past open tab synchronizations? If this was stored on the cloud, it may be possible to retrieve that table and restore the list of open tabs that way?

Is it possible to restore firefox to a previous version to recover all my data? After update, all my firefox pages, tabs, bookmarks and history have vanished. Please help me recover or restore. Thank you!

When I do this:

Click the menu button Fx89menuButton to open the menu panel. Click Bookmarks and then click the Manage bookmarks bar at the bottom. In the Library window, click the Import and Backup button and then select Restore.

I get a blank slate. No files listed.

When I go into the Profile, I see C:\Users\whatt\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\shgdgxn6.default-release-1752271533405\bookmarkbackups

How do I restore bookmarks from that file?

I don't know whether this happened after an update - there was one a few days ago, but I only realised this morning, after switching on the computer, that all my bookmarks are missing. The toolbar is there, empty, only reading "For quick access, place your bookmarks here on the bookmarks toolbar"... I wish! I tried to restore the bookmarks - but it seems there is no backup to restore at all. Then I tried to check my profiles, but there is only the one currently in use. Then I tried to move a tab to the bookmarks toolbar - and nothing happened. Then I began to panic: toolbar apart, we're speaking about years of bookmarks, most of them related to my research for my books... All the advice in the support seems to point towards profiles and backups, but, as I said, it's clearly not my case... Please, please, please: help!

Seit dem 25.12.2025 habe ich meine Lesezeichen und Passwörter, wahrscheinlich nach einem Update oder einer unbeabsichtigten Fehleingabe nicht mehr zur Verfügung. ich möchte meine Firefox-Version wieder auf den Stand vom 24.12.2025 zurücksetzen. Was kann ich tun oder kann man auch telefonisch Kontakt aufnehmen in deutscher Sprache?

Installed 134.0.2. Bookmarks disappeared. Went to restore backups, receive message "unable to process the backup file". All of my bookmark backup files receive this message when I try to restore.

Mozillers,

I depend heavily in my environmental and other work on Firefox and am grateful for its ability to restore previous tabs when my laptop, not infrequently, stops working abruptly.

Now the much-used bookmarks have disappeared. A search site states promisingly:

"To restore Firefox bookmarks, use the built-in backup feature by going to Menu > Bookmarks > Manage Bookmarks > Import & Backup > Restore, then select a dated backup or a manual file (like a JSON backup) to bring back lost bookmarks..."

But my Firefox's Bookmarks drop-down menu has no Manage Bookmarks option. PLEASE, what must I do?

Elsewhere I managed to find this file which apparently contains recent bookmarks:

"C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\unk14jlv.default-release-1647366062305\bookmarkbackups\bookmarks-2025-12-26_95_4IdGtYxezJpwuH1UIiT1bRwe1K6bcGO8rv0mqa9rUWU=.jsonlz4"

But attempting to open it with Applications\firefox.exe (default) accomplishes nothing.

FOOL-proof instructions would be wonderful. Thank you.

Hello, FF 139.0.4 on MAC Sequoia15.5. Lost ALL references to bookmarks, i.e. Bookmarks Toolbar totally gone. How can/do I restore from .jsonlz4 file in bookmarkbackups. Also, will I be able to salvage my previous profile, presumably containing my older "Tabs on Bottom" work-around? Alternatively, is there a process to restore JUST Firefox from Time Machine? Appreciate any advice.

Hi! i was wondering why my firefox reseted after reboot. i have all the important tabs and bookmarks for my university work, chores and articles, platforms that are mandetory on my uni. also, i was tinkering with partitions before the reboot because my steam didnt want to run any games. i was guided by the chat gpt with terminal coding to do get steam working even tho i didnt solve the problem. is there any way you can help me?

As of a few days ago all my bookmarks disappeared and I can't save anything to bookmarks nor can I type a couple letters of frequently used websites and the url automatically comes up. Jenny

My bookmarks have all disappeared, and while I have tried to follow the instructions on the help page to restore them, nothing is working as it has been indicated that it should in the help instructions. I do still have my Bookmarks tab on my tool bar. When I click on it I get a pull down menu, which does have a Manage BookMarks bar. However it is not at the bottom of my pull down menu, but at the top. When I click on the Manage BookMarks bar, instead of getting an Import and Backup Button, my pull down menu disappears, so I can not select Restore to use to get dated backups.

In the same way, I can not create new Bookmarks. When I click on Bookmark Current Tab, instead of getting the white box to enter instructions, the pull down menu disappears, just as it does when I click on Manage Bookmarks. I have never had this problem with Firefox before in all the years I have used it. I have no idea what has happened.

Desktop Computer. Still on Windows 10.

Not sure of category. This began when I launched the computer today. I opened Firefox and got the message "The bookmarks and history system will not be functional because ....."

When I started to shut down the computer (first mentioned step here) I saw there's a Window update. I selected Update and Restart. That went okay, but still don't have my Firefox bookmarks.

So I clicked on Learn more. I found the Firefox > Profiles folder. There are two folders, one from today - qkuxm6ws.default-release - 15...... 0196 with 94 items, and 7ghfiw 15.default, from Jan 5, 2021, with 3 items. I assume I should use the one with today's date.

BUT .... from this point, the information on this website was full of information - NOT step-by-step information telling me what to do with which files in this folder.

Also, I have McAfee as well as Windows Defender. I opened Windows Defender Firewall. State is On. Notification state: Notify me when Windows Defender Firewall blocks a new app. I've gotten no such messages.

Under allowed apps and features:

 "Firefox ... private not checked; public checked.."  
 "Firefox (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox" - private is checked, public not checked.  

Can't make changes.

Under Overview window: Not checked is "Inbound connections that do not match a rule are blocked."

• • • • In the "Monitoring\Firewall folder" - Firefox (with path) is listed twice. Both entries have Private, Allow, NO Override -
      • Differences - the first has UDP; the second has TCP. Nothing under "Group."

My last bookmarks backup was Jan 2025. 😕 😟

I don't know where else to look or what to do. Please help. Kami

Firefuxxed was refusing to open new tabs so I shut it down and restarted it (always fixes it) and all my pinned and open tabs were gone with no way to recover them, it took me half an hour to manually restore the pinned ones one by one but not all of them as I cannot remember all of them let alone all the open tabs I had (hours of research gone down the toilet).

There should be a way to backup and restore pinned and open tabs so this doesn't happen, the history option does nothing.

OS: Linux Mint 22 fresh install from a week ago Previous version of Firefuxxed updated after this shamossel.