Okay - I'm just confused now.
So I asked a question yesterday with the same problem but since then I've done a lot of my own research & what-not so I'm hoping I'm little more educated on what to do, however I'm just not fully understanding what I'm doing wrong, unfortunately.
So a run down of what happened yesterday. I was told by a microsoft guy to do a factory reset but select the option to keep my files. Which I did. I thought because I have a Firefox account my passwords will be uneffected. I did the reset & came back, downloaded firefox for their website, went to sign in & of course, I forgot my password for that, I hit forgot password & I was told to insert a 32 key code. I was never once given a code, I've had my account for yeeeears. I had to forgo entering the code & yup, everything has been wiped.
Since then in my research, I've heard many people talking about C:/Windows.old/users/kelsi/AppData/roaming/mozilla/firefox/profiles - I have this in my folders. Inside that there's also logins & logins-backup (JSON files) & key4 file. When I open up the logins into my notepad app, I see all my sites that I have passwords for (encrypted) so they are there! I then also have C:/Users/kelsi/AppData/roaming/mozilla/firefox/profiles/profiles (there's two folders labelled profiles). I was speaking to a few users online who said that I've to copy & paste the C:/Windows.old(...)profiles onto the C:/Users (...)/profiles & then start up firefox again. I did all that, opened up firefox again but nothing. However in the c:/users folder upto & into the profiles folder, it's got the key4, logins, logins-backup there. When I open the logins file on notepad, all my encrypted passwords are now also in the c:/users(...) profiles section.
So I'm just wondering what to do now. I feel like I've gone crazy trying to figure this out. I've got a lot of resources to use, spoke to so many people but I seem to have hit a deadend. I'm a complete beginner with all of this, I only use my laptop for Firefox, so I really don't know much about the ins & outs of anything else. I am hoping this makes sense to someone & can point me in the right direction of either where to go next or what I've done wrong (I can't emphasis enough how much of a beginner I am, so please make it easy to understand) Thank you in advance.
Chosen solution
What you want to do is create a new profile and use it as a shell to move whatever data you need from the old profile to the new one - that is the idea. What follows is a year old post by cor-el which may enlighten you about what is needed from your old profile - you are interested in passwords and encription files to start. Read it carefully and get the idea then come back withmore informed questions - I don't use windows anymore so am not on top of how exact locations work but you seem to be aware of the locations. kudos to cor-el for laying this a lot better than I could have...
cor-el said
Best is not to copy the full profile folder, but only copy data files that are safe to copy.Read this answer in context 👍 1
You can copy certain files with Firefox closed from one profile folder to another profile folder to transfer your personal data. Note that best is to avoid restoring a full profile folder and only restore important files that are safe to restore/transfer.
- bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
- favicons: favicons.sqlite
- bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
- cookies.sqlite for the Cookies
- formhistory.sqlite for saved autocomplete Form Data
- logins.json (encrypted logins) and key4.db (encryption key/primary password) for logins saved in the Password Manager
- cert9.db for certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
- persdict.dat for words added to the spell checker dictionary
- permissions.sqlite for Permissions and possibly content-prefs.sqlite for other website specific data (Site Preferences)
- sessionstore.jsonlz4 for open tabs and pinned tabs (see also the sessionstore-backups folder)
All Replies (2)
Suluhisho teule
What you want to do is create a new profile and use it as a shell to move whatever data you need from the old profile to the new one - that is the idea. What follows is a year old post by cor-el which may enlighten you about what is needed from your old profile - you are interested in passwords and encription files to start. Read it carefully and get the idea then come back withmore informed questions - I don't use windows anymore so am not on top of how exact locations work but you seem to be aware of the locations. kudos to cor-el for laying this a lot better than I could have...
cor-el said
Best is not to copy the full profile folder, but only copy data files that are safe to copy.
You can copy certain files with Firefox closed from one profile folder to another profile folder to transfer your personal data. Note that best is to avoid restoring a full profile folder and only restore important files that are safe to restore/transfer.
- bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
- favicons: favicons.sqlite
- bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
- cookies.sqlite for the Cookies
- formhistory.sqlite for saved autocomplete Form Data
- logins.json (encrypted logins) and key4.db (encryption key/primary password) for logins saved in the Password Manager
- cert9.db for certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
- persdict.dat for words added to the spell checker dictionary
- permissions.sqlite for Permissions and possibly content-prefs.sqlite for other website specific data (Site Preferences)
- sessionstore.jsonlz4 for open tabs and pinned tabs (see also the sessionstore-backups folder)
Modified by jeff-g
jeff-g said
What you want to do is create a new profile and use it as a shell to move whatever data you need from the old profile to the new one - that is the idea. What follows is a year old post by cor-el which may enlighten you about what is needed from your old profile - you are interested in passwords and encription files to start. Read it carefully and get the idea then come back withmore informed questions - I don't use windows anymore so am not on top of how exact locations work but you seem to be aware of the locations. kudos to cor-el for laying this a lot better than I could have...cor-el said
Best is not to copy the full profile folder, but only copy data files that are safe to copy.
You can copy certain files with Firefox closed from one profile folder to another profile folder to transfer your personal data. Note that best is to avoid restoring a full profile folder and only restore important files that are safe to restore/transfer.
- bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
- favicons: favicons.sqlite
- bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
- cookies.sqlite for the Cookies
- formhistory.sqlite for saved autocomplete Form Data
- logins.json (encrypted logins) and key4.db (encryption key/primary password) for logins saved in the Password Manager
- cert9.db for certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
- persdict.dat for words added to the spell checker dictionary
- permissions.sqlite for Permissions and possibly content-prefs.sqlite for other website specific data (Site Preferences)
- sessionstore.jsonlz4 for open tabs and pinned tabs (see also the sessionstore-backups folder)
Hi, thank you so much for taking the time to help. I luckily stumbled upon this post (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1321847) & ended up following that before seeing your response. Luckily it's all been sorted now but thanks again for replying! Have a good day :)
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