"Why?"

One developer created a Bugzilla report about removing that rarely used feature; other developers weighed in; and consensus was reached to remove it.

The field for Description is gone as of Firefox 62 and the Description data will be removed from the Places file in Firefox 64. It is viewable in an exported bookmarks.html, but as of Firefox 64 it will be gone altogether.

Note that this is only about removing the description field that is part of the annotations. There is another description field that is used by Activity Stream (about:newtab) that isn't exposed at the moment and is also not editable.

It is possible that there will be an extension that uses local storage to add support for a description field.

• Bug 1402890 - Stop supporting and remove the description annotation

Please do not comment in bug reports
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html

cor-el #answer-1128568

What is annotations? What is Activity Stream ?

RexaFire said

cor-el #answer-1128568 What is annotations? What is Activity Stream ?

annotations = a note of explanation or comment added to a text or diagram the comments you are making in the missing field.

Activity Stream = https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Activity_Stream

• https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/activity-stream/

Pls dont remove it mozilla.

RexaFire said

Pls dont remove it mozilla.

RexaFire you know the routine : Please go to Help --> Submit Feedback and a Team will review it.

the-edmeister said

"Why?" One developer created a Bugzilla report about removing that rarely used feature; other developers weighed in; and consensus was reached to remove it. The field for Description is gone as of Firefox 62 and the Description data will be removed from the Places file in Firefox 64. It is viewable in an exported bookmarks.html, but as of Firefox 64 it will be gone altogether.

"Say Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Are you Serious?"

This is cRaZy! So, all my descriptions in my Bookmarks over the years are going to get deleted?

~Pj

Pj said

This is cRaZy! So, all my descriptions in my Bookmarks over the years are going to get deleted?

As I understand it, the roadmap is:

• Firefox 62: no interface to access Descriptions
• Firefox 64: Descriptions get deleted from the database

I expect someone will develop a basic extension to let users store notes on sites if they don't want to go to something big like Evernote or OneNote.

As you probably know, you can export your bookmarks to an HTML file to make the description data readable, but it's a one-way street in Firefox 62-63.

Export Firefox bookmarks to an HTML file to back up or transfer bookmarks

If you are a Firefox 64 user from the future and lost your Descriptions, check for files in the bookmarkbackups folder in your currently active profile and try converting to HTML format using https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/bookbackreader.html from newest to oldest until you find one that still has the data.

Ref. Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data

Pj said

the-edmeister said

"Why?" One developer created a Bugzilla report about removing that rarely used feature; other developers weighed in; and consensus was reached to remove it. The field for Description is gone as of Firefox 62 and the Description data will be removed from the Places file in Firefox 64. It is viewable in an exported bookmarks.html, but as of Firefox 64 it will be gone altogether.

"Say Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Are you Serious?"

This is cRaZy! So, all my descriptions in my Bookmarks over the years are going to get deleted?

~Pj

That is the way Mozilla works. If a feature isn't used by many users, the developers consider it for removal; by consensus and discussion before action is taken.

At least you're getting advanced notice; that data will be there for 2 more versions so it can be viewed by exporting bookmarks in bookmarks.html format. Save that file and figure how you want to be able to access the data in the future.

I am still trying to figure why I used that Description field for like 6 to 8 months back in Firefox 3.0 (June 2008) when that feature was first added to Firefox bookmarks and then I stopped using it. I have a couple of dozen bookmarks where I used that field, then all of a sudden stopped using it; and all those bookmarks were related to extensions and Minefield versions being created in that time frame. i.e.; Firefox 3.5 and related extension development topics as near as I can tell.

Note that this is about the description field that is part of the annotations.

A while back a description field got added to the moz_places table to use with the Activity Stream feature, so there were two description fields and it was decided to remove the annotation version. Most aren't aware of this field and you can only inspect it in the Bookmarks Manager (Library) after you click the more button. The field in moz_places doesn't have a user interface to modify

• bug 1402890 - Stop supporting and remove the description annotation

(please do not comment in bug reports
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html)

cor-el said

Note that this is about the description field that is part of the annotations. A while back a description field got added to the moz_places table to use with the Activity Stream feature, so there were two description fields and it was decided to remove the annotation version. Most aren't aware of this field and you can only inspect it in the Bookmarks Manager (Library) after you click the more button. The field in moz_places doesn't have a user interface to modify

---

• bug 1402890 - Stop supporting and remove the description annotation

(please do not comment in bug reports
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html)

Ha! Maybe not used much because it's CLOSED by default. How many don't know it's there. I didn't see it at first when I started using FF (after using IE for years).

~Pj