hello vladoarchy, firefox sync is not designed as a backup service but to keep multiple devices on the same level.

in order to access the data in your sync account you'd need three components: the username, the password & the recovery key generated during the original setup of the account (you're prompted to print it/save it/write it down while setting it up). in case you have all those three pieces of information available, you can go to firefox > options > sync > set-up sync > i have an account > i don't have the device with me in order to link firefox to your account.

Hi Philipp,

Thanks for your prompt answer. When setting up Firefox I did just that: firefox > options > sync > set-up sync > i have an account > i don't have the device with me. I was able to log in with my username and password, bypassing the need for the recovery key, but it didn't do anything. None of my previous bookmarks were restored as result of it. If I go to firefox > options > sync, it says that I'm signed in, but it has no effect on the bookmarks.

Your first sentence is key though. I misunderstood what Firefox Sync actually does. It's a shame that it ONLY keeps multiple devices in sync. It should do more than that and allow me to restore my bookmarks, passwords, etc. from the cloud. Just like Google Chrome does.

The bottom line is, I don't see a clear way of restoring my bookmarks, since I wasn't syncing them with any other device to begin with.

sorry, the first sentence shouldn't say that it is totally impossible to use it with one device (your bookmarks likely got transferred into the sync account), but it wasn't designed with the goal of a backup facility in mind - the normal pairing option requires that you have a device with sync already configured with you so that you can add another device to the account easily. that is clearly not the case when you've reformatted the system.

in this case the one and only option is to enter the account data with the correct recovery key -without it it is impossible to decrypt the sync data & your data will be lost unfortunately.

i know that this is a rather complicated procedure, however since sync can hold very sensitive information like all the user's passwords and browsing history it is of paramount importance that the data is properly encrypted. normally when you let users choose a password freely they tend to use rather weak passwords, that's why the recovery key was introduced which should guarantee strong encryption standards.

mozilla is aware of those usability issues with sync and will likely come up with a replacement in the future...

Note that you should check the Sync options if you want something different than the default.

• click the "Sync Options" button at the bottom to select what to sync (Sync Options only affect the first sync)

Select this choice if you want to restore data from the Sync server:

• "Replace all data on this device with my Sync data"