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I have lost all my settings in reinstalling firefox

  • 2 replies
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  • Last reply by Peter Ray

Peter Ray
Peter Ray
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I had to temporarily make Chrome my default browser, but when I then tried to go back and make firefox my default browser, windows 10 did not list it. (This has happened several times in the past few years, and I have the sneaking suspicion that Microsoft does this on purpose.) Firefox told me to uninstall and reinstall it, which I did, being careful to state that I wanted my settings, passwords, bookmarks, etc. to be saved. However, the reinstallation lost them all. I then imported my bookmarks from Chrome, but they are old ones. How can I get back my settings, etc. in Firefox? Thanks, Peter Ray

I had to temporarily make Chrome my default browser, but when I then tried to go back and make firefox my default browser, windows 10 did not list it. (This has happened several times in the past few years, and I have the sneaking suspicion that Microsoft does this on purpose.) Firefox told me to uninstall and reinstall it, which I did, being careful to state that I wanted my settings, passwords, bookmarks, etc. to be saved. However, the reinstallation lost them all. I then imported my bookmarks from Chrome, but they are old ones. How can I get back my settings, etc. in Firefox? Thanks, Peter Ray

Chosen solution

Hi

Thank you for your question about the Firefox Sync service.

It appears from your question, that you are using Firefox Sync as a back up service. This is not what Sync is designed to do. The Firefox Sync service takes a copy of the data you wish to include and transfers it to a second device (typically a mobile device such as a tablet or a telephone) running a copy of Firefox. The storage in between all attached devices is both temporary and fragile and is not stable enough to be (and is not designed as) a reliable backup service.

If you have a copy of your Firefox profile for desktop Firefox, you may be able to recover your bookmarks and other data. Please have a read of this article.

If you have a copy of your data on a mobile version of Firefox, please follow these instructions to connect it to Firefox Sync to copy your data.

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All Replies (2)

Paul
Paul
  • Top 25 Contributor
  • Moderator
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Chosen Solution

Hi

Thank you for your question about the Firefox Sync service.

It appears from your question, that you are using Firefox Sync as a back up service. This is not what Sync is designed to do. The Firefox Sync service takes a copy of the data you wish to include and transfers it to a second device (typically a mobile device such as a tablet or a telephone) running a copy of Firefox. The storage in between all attached devices is both temporary and fragile and is not stable enough to be (and is not designed as) a reliable backup service.

If you have a copy of your Firefox profile for desktop Firefox, you may be able to recover your bookmarks and other data. Please have a read of this article.

If you have a copy of your data on a mobile version of Firefox, please follow these instructions to connect it to Firefox Sync to copy your data.

Peter Ray
Peter Ray Question owner
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Thank you! This solved my problem.