Disappearing bookmarks
About a year ago an update to Firefox erased all of my bookmarks. After painstakingly replacing them it happened again today with the latest update. How can I get them back?
Chosen solution
What kind of bookmark backup do you have ?
Make sure the bookmarks backup file has the correct (lowercase) file extension:
- .html for a HTML backup (needs to be imported and merges bookmarks)
- .json for a JSON backup (needs to be restored and replaces bookmarks)
You can check the file type via the right-click context menu of that file and open the Properties. If you are not sure about the file type then you can open the file in Firefox via "Firefox -> New Tab -> Open File" or "File -> Open File". A JSON backup will show as one long text line without line breaks and a HTML backup shows as a web page with clickable links.
An HTML backup starts with: <!DOCTYPE NETSCAPE-Bookmark-file-1> A JSON backup starts with: {"title":"","id":1,"dateAdded":
Read this answer in context 👍 0All Replies (6)
Hopefully, this article will help.
Restore Bookmark Backups
Firefox automatically makes backups of the bookmarks. These are stored in the bookmarkbackups folder.
Open the Bookmarks Manager; Press the Alt or F10 key to bring up the toolbar, and select Bookmarks. Hot key is <Control> (Mac=<Command>) <Shift> B.
Once the window is open, at the top of the page, press the button labeled Import and Backup. Select Restore. From the list, pick the file you want and click it.
The backups are stored in a jsonlz4 file named something like this; bookmarks-2016-06-29_1424_enD1GTH ya0JmicnYWg4V4g==.jsonlz4
In this example; 2016-06-29 = date created, 1424 = number of entries.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/restore-bookmarks-from-backup-or-move-them
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recover-lost-or-missing-bookmarks
https://support.mozilla.org/kb/forum-response-recover-bookmarks-after-update
The oldest file is only 6 months old and is the small list that I could remember. All the backups were made after the last time the bookmarks disappeared. I found an old file called "bookmarks" that has most of the ones I'm looking for but when I tried to paste it into the browser the message was "file type not supported". I was able to import them into the bookmarks manager but they still don't show up in the browser. 'm gonna reboot everything and see what happens. Thanks for your help.
Chosen Solution
What kind of bookmark backup do you have ?
Make sure the bookmarks backup file has the correct (lowercase) file extension:
- .html for a HTML backup (needs to be imported and merges bookmarks)
- .json for a JSON backup (needs to be restored and replaces bookmarks)
You can check the file type via the right-click context menu of that file and open the Properties. If you are not sure about the file type then you can open the file in Firefox via "Firefox -> New Tab -> Open File" or "File -> Open File". A JSON backup will show as one long text line without line breaks and a HTML backup shows as a web page with clickable links.
An HTML backup starts with: <!DOCTYPE NETSCAPE-Bookmark-file-1> A JSON backup starts with: {"title":"","id":1,"dateAdded":
The file I found was bookmarks.html and I was able to import into firefox. FredMcD When I used your method the oldest backup on the list was April 7, 2020. That was the first time this happened and that file contains only the default bookmarks that come with firefox.