Firefox Community Forum

Updated to 160.0 a few days ago on my laptop. Went to view my History for reference today, only to find today's...and only today's...History, with NO previous dates. Hmmm and grrr. OK, am I logged in? Yes. Hmmm. OK, I share Sync with my mobile device; maybe they're "backed up" there. I use quotes because the unchecking of the History box in Sync could/will wipe them. So I looked at my mobile device, and the History check box was unchecked. Hmmm, possibly not good. History goes back at least 2 weeks, good. Last auto-sync 1-hour ago. I remember unchecking the box, for memory reasons, previously, some time ago. OK, let's check the box now, to Sync today's History from the laptop (still working on the mobile device...). The mobile device took a couple of minutes to Sync; the only device it was Syncing with, the laptop, only had 15 History pages in total! So what took so long? After that, I went to the laptop, and initiated Sync from that browser. At least a couple of minutes later, it was done, and the History was restored/recovered. QUESTION: Where was it restored from? Firefox account cloud backup storage via Sync? Local browser storage on my mobile device via Sync? Was this a glitch in vers. 160.0? release? Was there any instruction to re-Sync on the "What's New in Firefox 160.0" webpage? (Good thing I know a few things! But this is taking my time to diagnose!)

I tried to sync 2 times, but says it's complete, but their are no files showing. Once or twice I was able to sign in to the old yahoo, but it disappears and I can't find it again. I am not a lover of this new screen because all my info is gone. I can't even get my email without a ton of ads!!!!!!! I want my information back, now! I have work to do on my PC, but since I have no contact info,

I don't have access to the Firefox I had 2 days ago.  Firefox asked if I wanted to go to the original screen and I checked yes 2 different times, with no result. I think the all's ok is because it's syncing the new Firefox and there is nothing there.  Please, I need my information badly.

Sincerely. Sandra Suriano [redacted email from community support forum]

I recently set up a new MOZILLA account. Unfortunately, when I logged into it with my main laptop, it sync'd me back to a older version of FIREFOX which was already running on another laptop.

It's not clear to me AT ALL how FIREFOX knows which data set to use as the target and which is the original source. That's probably part of the problem.

In any case, at this point, I've degraded my original FIREFOX. I don't know about the passwords going along with it...but I suspect i have problems coming my way there too.

Is there a way to UNDO the sync that was just performed? i do have an IDRIVE backup of the main computer as of this morning...in case that helps.

If so, how do I (in turn) use THIS DATA set as the one to sync?

Sorry if this sounds incoherent.

Thanks in advance for any help.

I recently got a new computer because my old one crapped out and trying to find my old account that I had all my history on. there is only one account that let me recover but there is no history or saved plugins I had or anything from the past. I haven't really used firefox much in a while but all my history should still be there. I have several email accounts and not sure which one I used for this account. here is a list of all my current email accounts, if you could tell me which one i used for the past several years so i can recover that acoount that would be great, or if I have the right account how to get all my history and saved information back. here are my accounts.

is the one that it let me recover but there is nothing in this profile???

Thanks Ed

I just saw this for the first time. I have limited storage space. My current profile is 3.05g in size. The instructions say Sync automatically updates Firefox profile data such as bookmarks, history, passwords and settings whenever you sign in with your Mozilla account

• If you use the cloud, is that Onedrive, or something else. Do you get to chose what is backed up, i.e., only bookmarks, history, passwords and settings? Or sessions, extensions as well? Or the entire profile?

• I had a problem with a corrupted sessionstore.jsonlz4 file that caused major behavior issues. Even after repair, all favicons were gone

• Do backup options include sessions and extensions?

• What if a backup was created with a corrupted sessionstore.jsonlz4, or corruption for any other source? Would that be reintroduced?

• If done locally, are the items compressed? My concern is does that mean Onedrive must be launched on startup. If you try to add any item to Onedrive local storage without Onedrive running, it will not sync

• Is it possible to have more than on backup at a time in cloud storage?

Firefox has exceeded all previous mess-ups by upgrading itself today (apparently sometime when my battery went flat and was then left recharging), and this happened despite my account being set for 'upgrades to be only installed manually'. Now every bookmark, all passwords and all the settings of my Home Page have been erased. I have no 'restore point' to resort to as supposedly all this info is synced to the cloud. But I can find no method to retrieve any of these files let alone one to restore them. This is a nightmare. Please help.

I have all my info in Mozilla sites, passwords... try to back up my new phone and WHAT.., back up the phone and erase all the info I have on mu computer!!!

That is crazy!

My old laptop crashed and I don't know how to access my old bookmarks and passwords.

Trying to go through SYNC did NOT help ... still nothing.

I need someone to help me figure this out.

I have reset/reinstalled Windows on this PC many times over roughly the past decade. Every previous time, I would reinstall Firefox, sign back into my Mozilla/Firefox account, enable Sync, and my data would come back: years of bookmarks, saved passwords, payment information, and other Firefox data.

I reset my PC again recently and did the exact same thing, except this time everything is missing.

Firefox Sync itself appears to be working normally. I am signed in, Sync is enabled, the appropriate categories are selected, and I can see that Firefox is syncing. The problem is that there seems to be nothing from my old Firefox data to sync back down.

I am also fairly confident that this is the same Mozilla account I have always used. This is the only email address I tested that behaved like an existing account with an existing password. Other email addresses I tried appeared to be treated as new accounts and asked me to create a password.

So I am not really looking for basic instructions on enabling Sync, manually syncing, checking the last sync time, or selecting which data types are synced. I have already gone through that.

What I am trying to understand is how an account that has successfully restored this same Firefox data after numerous previous Windows reinstalls can suddenly have none of that historical data available.

Specifically:

• Can previously synced Firefox data disappear from Mozilla's servers even though I did not intentionally delete it or disable Sync?

• Could reinstalling Firefox and signing into a newly reset/empty Firefox installation somehow cause the empty local profile to replace or wipe the previously synced server data?

• Are there circumstances where Firefox Sync effectively starts over with an empty dataset while continuing to use the same Mozilla account?

• Is there any server-side recovery, previous Sync state, historical copy, encrypted backup, or other mechanism Mozilla support can access when the current Sync dataset appears to be empty?

• Is there anything left to investigate on the old Windows installation/reset itself, such as a previous Firefox profile, Windows.old, recovery data, or another local copy, even if Firefox Sync no longer has the information?

• Is there any way to conclusively determine whether this account previously contained the missing bookmarks/passwords, rather than simply confirming that I am currently signed into the account?

The important distinction is that Sync is not currently “broken.” It appears to be syncing normally. The problem is that years of data that Firefox Sync had repeatedly restored for me in the past now appear to be completely absent.

I am trying to determine whether the old dataset may still exist somewhere, whether something could have caused the Sync dataset itself to be reset or replaced, or whether there is any remaining recovery path for the previous Firefox profile/data.

Hello,

after a rollback of my home system I looged into my Mozilla account to find out nothing synced over from the previous version that was installed on the same machine.

How can I recover everything (priority on passwords)

Best, Sebastian

Hello, I have formatted my laptop and downloaded firfox, but I'm not able to restore my old bookmarks and passwords after I signed in to my account and sync. Could you help me with this and thank you.

I'm the only User of my Firefox browser and I noticed Firefox stopped filling out logins automatically when browsing on the internet. I was unable to access my logins in the preference menu under "manage saved passwords" as the list was empty. At first I didn't understand why. It seems that I hadn't created a "Profile" and was still using Firefox with my main account and as such was unable to access any previously synced data of that nature (under the updated Firefox configuration) I have now created a Profile but I don't know how to sync with my main account's login data list... I have read that I can locate a Profile folder to load previous data, but I'd rather find the main account folder if that's even possible, because the Profile folder hasn't synced any logins if I understand correctly.

Cheers for even reading this far ;)

Hi,

Over the weekend we had a break-in in our apartment and the laptop i use for work was stolen. I used Mozilla has my primary browser and had all the tabs and password i use on a regular basis saved there. As such I panicked a little and removed that PC from the synced units on my account. Now it seems I have no way to regain that information.

Is there anything I can do?

Thanks in advance, and best wishes

why did firefox delete most of my shortcuts on my old pc after i synced with my new laptop and how do i get them back. I am a senior of 71 yrs not a computer tech.this just screwed everything up for me!HELP!!

Hello if i backup my data on firefox account then i sign into new device then i again login my email and firefox acc then i did not got my passwords or bookmarks and history again. Then what's the use of that backup ? is that offline or online backup if offline then what if i reset my pc and then login back ? if online then there is no option to backup that data. Help me to get back my data.

Hello, Today I performed a factory reset on my laptop (Windows 11). Before i did that, I checked if my Firefox account has synced all it's data, bookmarks, history etc. was checked and I pressed "sync" button. Then performed all of the actions connected with factory reset of a windows including partition removal. After that installed Firefox, logged in, but had to reset my password because it wasn't saved within my Bitwarden. Then synced and it turned out, that there is no saved bookmarks on my account. Is there a way to return my bookmarks?

Best regards, Karol Picher

Hello,

I have a new laptop and I am trying to recover my old Firefox data. On my previous laptop, I had Firefox bookmarks, saved passwords, browsing history, and other browser data. None of this information has appeared on my new laptop.

I have also forgotten the password for my Mozilla account. I tried to recover the account, but my bookmarks and other data are still missing.

Could you please explain how I can safely restore my bookmarks and saved login information?

My old laptop is [still available / no longer available]. The new laptop uses [Windows/macOS/Linux].

Thank you for your help.

I have a Firefox account I use as my default work browser. My organization's latest software updates forced me to re-install the latest version of Firefox. I specifically un-checked the box when installing that suggested clearing my settings and extensions, etc because I wanted to retain the way my profile was configured. When I logged back into my account, ALL of my settings, extensions, and YEARS of bookmarks I need to do my job have been completely wiped, and there seems to be nothing in my account that will allow me to recover them--the profile I've been using for year seems to have been completely reset, with all its history completely wiped.

Is there any possible way I can recover my bookmarks?? I did not create an external backup and realize that makes things harder, but I assumed my profile would retain its history as it was tied to an account I was always logged into.

Hi

I have been using Firefox mobile for many years. Recently I wanted to remove sone pinned websites on my home page. i was told the only way to achieve this was by using the desktop version as the mobile version did not support this action. i installed Firefox onto my laptop but on synchronisation it appears that the laptop has told the mobile that it is a new `setting` and not used the mobile as the `original`. I have now lost all of my bookmarks that i have collected over years on the mobile version. Can you suggest a way of restoring this and telling the laptop to use the mobile settings?

Regards

Paul McNeill