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How can I recover the information I had stored in the bottom panel of the bookmarks?

Trump45
Trump45
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I got no warning about the update that wiped out the information I had stored in the bottom panel of the bookmarks. I have lost a tremendous amount of valuable information. I load Firefox this AM only to discover the change.

Is there any way I can retrieve the bookmarks to recover the data?

Trump

I got no warning about the update that wiped out the information I had stored in the bottom panel of the bookmarks. I have lost a tremendous amount of valuable information. I load Firefox this AM only to discover the change. Is there any way I can retrieve the bookmarks to recover the data? Trump

All Replies (1)

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Hi Trump, Firefox 62 still has the Description information, but starting in Firefox 62, it can no longer be viewed anywhere in the program. It is expected that it will be deleted by Firefox 64, so this is a good time to export it.

Export Bookmarks to a locally saved Web Page (HTML File)

Please see this article: Export Firefox bookmarks to an HTML file to back up or transfer bookmarks. That creates a web page, so you can open it in a Firefox tab, or in any browser. You'll notice the descriptions nested below the linked titles of the bookmarks that have descriptions.

Optional: Migrate Bookmarks to Zotero

There probably are a number of tools you could use to manage notes and annotations on your bookmarks. This is one of them.

Zotero is an open source bibliographic/research tool for collecting references. Zotero knows how to read a Firefox HTML bookmarks file and will preserve the descriptions. You can keep your storage purely local, or you can optionally sync with the Zotero cloud.

This is a one-way trip: you can send new references to Zotero from within Firefox using a Zotero add-on, but you won't be able to read/edit bookmark descriptions from within Firefox.

If you want to try it:

The Zotero research tool is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux from https://www.zotero.org/

When you import a bookmarks.html file, it creates entries for each page but it flattens the folder structure, so it comes out like this:

  • bookmarks.html, with top-level Bookmarks Menu items
    • Bookmarks Toolbar folder
    • Folder1
    • Folder2
    • Other Bookmarks folder

When you click a bookmark, Zotero displays the Title, URL, and "Abstract" which contains the imported Description. (Screenshot #1) Double-clicking the item will launch the page in the default browser.

Zotero also has an optional Firefox Connector webextension, which allow saving new pages to a Zotero collection (either under the bookmarks structure, or other folders the user created in Zotero). (Screenshot #2)

<center></center>

(I didn't look at cloud sync.)

Using a second program is less convenient than using Firefox features or a fully self-contained Firefox extension. However, it might suit your needs.