Recover account (bookmarks and saved logins) with lost password after computer crash
Dear,
I need to recover my Mozilla (Firefox) account on my computer after this latter crashed. Unfortunately, apparently I don't have the good password. Probably I used an automatically generated password which I don't remember.
I still have my account connected on my Android smartphone, but I can't access the account details (no way to recover my password or change through this device?!), and I can't export my bookmarks. Also, apparently all my identifiers and passwords were not synced on my smartphone :-( Hence somewhere all my precious information are available, but stupidly enough I can't access it anymore and resetting the password warns me that I might (is it even a certainty or a possibility?) lose everything. It seems that I cannot even produce a revovery key (to reset pwd without losing data as mentioned in the Help pages) as I can't connect on a desktop browser anymore (but well on my Android version). I am lost and just stupidly blocked - this is SO frustrating, I initially thought it would be a good idea to put everything in Mozilla - well...
Is there ANY way to actually recover my account without losing data on my desktop Firefox, given I still have access to the email account associated to the Mozilla account (and to the original emails from the creation of my accounts) and I still have access to my Firefox account on the Android app but this one doesn't seem to allow to do anything interesting in my case??
Thanks a lot!
Mafitar da aka zaɓa
Hi, thanks for the different suggestions! Here is the outcome, in case useful for others: 1) I did it and indeed - and very unfortunately - I lost all my data. 2) I did not have such a key (which is also very unfortunate - of course I was not aware of this before the problem happened to me) 3) No sync could help me here, as nothing is possible from the Android app, all more relevant actions should be taken from the Desktop app which I had no access to anymore. 4-5-6) where of no help. 7) I did not try this.
Suboptimal solution: In the end, to recover my bookmarks, I could go to my Android Firefox app (which was still connected to my account, but no way to recover any account access from there!) to go and manually select all the bookmarks to export them and reload them into my Desktop Firefox. A bit tedious, but at least the info is not totally lost. Logins and password were completely lost.
Altogether, quite a very unhandy experience with Firefox - I understand the need for security, but still... :-/
Karanta wannan amsa a matsayinta 👍 0All Replies (3)
Hey, you can try the following to solve the problem: 1)Try resetting your password: Even though the warning states that you might lose your data, it's worth a try. You can reset your password by going to Firefox's "Forgot your password?" page and entering the email associated with your account. Once you've reset your password, try logging in to your account on your computer and see if your data is still there. 2)Check your email for the recovery key: When you created your Firefox account, an email with a recovery key should have been sent to the email associated with your account. Check your email for this key and use it to reset your password without losing your data. 3)Check Firefox's "Sync" settings: If your data was synced with Firefox, you may be able to recover your data by checking Firefox's "Sync" settings. Go to Firefox's preferences and then "Sync" and see if your data is there. 4)Check Firefox's "Add-Ons" settings: You can check your Firefox's "Add-Ons" settings to see if your bookmarks and passwords are stored in any Add-ons. 5)Check Firefox's "Form & Search History" : You can check Firefox's "Form & Search History" settings to see if your bookmarks and passwords are stored in any form or search history. 6)Check Firefox's "Download" history: You can check Firefox's "Download" history to see if you have any backups of your bookmarks or passwords. 7)Try using a Firefox Account recovery tool: There are a few third-party tools that can help you recover your Firefox account. I hope the above suggestions would be of help
Zaɓi Mafita
Hi, thanks for the different suggestions! Here is the outcome, in case useful for others: 1) I did it and indeed - and very unfortunately - I lost all my data. 2) I did not have such a key (which is also very unfortunate - of course I was not aware of this before the problem happened to me) 3) No sync could help me here, as nothing is possible from the Android app, all more relevant actions should be taken from the Desktop app which I had no access to anymore. 4-5-6) where of no help. 7) I did not try this.
Suboptimal solution: In the end, to recover my bookmarks, I could go to my Android Firefox app (which was still connected to my account, but no way to recover any account access from there!) to go and manually select all the bookmarks to export them and reload them into my Desktop Firefox. A bit tedious, but at least the info is not totally lost. Logins and password were completely lost.
Altogether, quite a very unhandy experience with Firefox - I understand the need for security, but still... :-/
If data is still on the mobile device then resetting the password and reconnecting the mobile device using the new password should upload new data to the Sync server. I would suggest to first try to check on a desktop computer what is on the Sync server.
You can install the About Sync extension in Firefox 72 and newer on desktop to check what data is stored on the Sync server via the about:sync page provided by this extension.
Close and restart Firefox to access the about:sync page added by this extension (see the about:about page for possible about pages).