Recovering bookmarks after catesrophic loss and forgetting password
Hi Mozilla Team,
I recently had a catastrophic issue with my computer and had to do a factory reset. I was removing my dead name from my folder structure and profile on my machine, and this caused it to bork...I know even my silicon hardware is transphobic *sigh*. I know there are articles talking about this issue, and I know for security and privacy your policy is that all bookmarks are lost with a password reset.
However, these bookmarks are very very invaluable, and contain so much information regarding my transition, my career, etc. I just really would love to try and find a way to recover these if at all possible. I know you and your team make recovery possible in an slew of ways, and I really don't know if I set any of those up. I thought I might of, but I am still picking up the pieces from this reset. I know I should have been more proactive about recovery and really thought I was, and I am really kicking myself for not being more explicit/diligent.
I am happy to go through any verification process. I know you have policies for a reason, but I can't just give up on so much important information. There is a years worth of memories during a time, where memories and identity are shifting. I am literally begging to not lose this data.
Best, Jean Ferrante
தீர்வு தேர்ந்தெடுக்கப்பட்டது
Hi Jean, the kind of password reset that clears your data from the Mozilla Sync cloud is a reset of your Firefox Account password. Is that what you reset? If so, then unfortunately that data is unrecoverable. Before the data was uploaded to the Sync cloud, it was pre-encrypted with your old password. Since you didn't know that password (which is why you needed to reset it), the data would be useless to you anyway (even if it wasn't deleted).
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Hi Jean
Thank you for your question.
I am really sorry, but unless you already had a backup of your Firefox profile, or have the bookmarks synced to another copy of Firefox, if you were going through the "lost password" process, anything that was being synced will now be lost.
Does this article help? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/restore-bookmarks-from-backup-or-move-them
தீர்வு தேர்ந்தெடுக்கப்பட்டது
Hi Jean, the kind of password reset that clears your data from the Mozilla Sync cloud is a reset of your Firefox Account password. Is that what you reset? If so, then unfortunately that data is unrecoverable. Before the data was uploaded to the Sync cloud, it was pre-encrypted with your old password. Since you didn't know that password (which is why you needed to reset it), the data would be useless to you anyway (even if it wasn't deleted).
No Time Machine backup left as well to you could use?
Hi Everyone, Thanks for the help. Knowing the encryption is set to the password is a comfort for the platform but sad about the data. I haven't done the reset yet, so hopefully I'll be able to remember the password. The last backup I made of my machine was over a year ago, and most of the bookmarks were added after I made that backup.
So I think my data, is doomed. lol. Great reminder to set up the recovery keys. Thanks everyone in the community that responded, I really appreciate the considered and thoughtful responses.