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When exactly does Firefox create bookmarks backup?

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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I need to know when Firefox creates bookmarks backup. Help says that "it is created automatically", this answer is not sufficient for me. Someone found out that backup is being created after deleting the history, but I know it can be created on other circumstances, so please provide me information what are the possible reasons for Firefox to create a bookmarks backup?

To summarize: What triggers Firefox to create bookmarks backup?

I need to know when Firefox creates bookmarks backup. Help says that "it is created automatically", this answer is not sufficient for me. Someone found out that backup is being created after deleting the history, but I know it can be created on other circumstances, so please provide me information what are the possible reasons for Firefox to create a bookmarks backup? To summarize: What triggers Firefox to create bookmarks backup?

Chosen solution

If you set Firefox to create an HTML backup automatically (browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML = true) then this is always done when you close Firefox. When this is about creating a compressed .jsonlz4 JSON backup then this is done when you start Firefox and Firefox detects that there have been changes to to bookmarks, i.e. the calculated hash value differs from the hash value in the most recent JSON backup.

The name of an automatically created JSON bookmarks backup in the bookmarkbackups folder includes a total item count (folders and separators included) and an hash value to prevent saving the same backup more than once. You also see this count in the Restore menu drop-down list.

  • bookmarks-YYYY-MM-DD_<item count>_<hash>.jsonlz4.
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Chosen Solution

If you set Firefox to create an HTML backup automatically (browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML = true) then this is always done when you close Firefox. When this is about creating a compressed .jsonlz4 JSON backup then this is done when you start Firefox and Firefox detects that there have been changes to to bookmarks, i.e. the calculated hash value differs from the hash value in the most recent JSON backup.

The name of an automatically created JSON bookmarks backup in the bookmarkbackups folder includes a total item count (folders and separators included) and an hash value to prevent saving the same backup more than once. You also see this count in the Restore menu drop-down list.

  • bookmarks-YYYY-MM-DD_<item count>_<hash>.jsonlz4.