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.

The best way to back up your data would be to include the relevant files from your Firefox profile. This page will help with that.

Thank you for your reply.

But i am not using it as a backup solution. I know the sync function is not to make backups of some sort. And please note that i have not lost any data or anything. Everything works perfectly fine right now between my PC, laptop and android.

My question is however, If for some reason any of the 3 devices break/get stolen or whatever, as long as i have 1 of the 3 devices i can always get my bookmarks connected to it?

As an example: House catches fire and destroys my laptop and PC. But i managed to save my phone. When i buy a new PC and log into the same account on firefox. Will my bookmarks be back on that new PC (From a copy of the firefox on my android device)?

Want to be sure you always have them. Mouse to browser top a blank area and Right Click, Click Menu Bar. Bookmarks --> Show All Bookmarks --> Import and Export --> Export as HTML ( I have had mine since 95) To update that just repeat and copy over. Email it to self, Save it everywhere. USB key fob

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-set-sync-my-computer https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/firefox/sync https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-choose-what-types-information-sync-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-sync-troubleshooting-and-tips

Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.

Thanks for the reply. Its an ok suggestion but not one i would do. I am someone where the bookmarks list changes a lot and the process of repeating that continuously isnt very good for workflow. If there is an automated backup way to do this, sure.

Still it is also not an answer to the original question i have asked.

Dakara said

.... My question is however, If for some reason any of the 3 devices break/get stolen or whatever, as long as i have 1 of the 3 devices i can always get my bookmarks connected to it? As an example: House catches fire and destroys my laptop and PC. But i managed to save my phone. When i buy a new PC and log into the same account on firefox. Will my bookmarks be back on that new PC (From a copy of the firefox on my android device)?

First, Sync doesn't work from device to device. When you log in to Sync the first time on a new device, the Sync data would be loaded from the Sync server. All Sync data goes thru the Sync server even when multiple devices are running at the same time and when Sync is enabled on those devices.

Second bookmarks on a "mobile device" (cell phone or tablet) probably won't have all the bookmarks that are on a laptop / desktop device. There is some sort of limit on which bookmarks are sent to "mobile devices", which typically don't have the data storage capacity of other devices.

Third - the biggest issue with users trying to use Sync as a backup medium is when they change their Sync password; that action clears their data from the Sync server. The original password was used to create the encryption "keys" for the data that is sitting on the Sync; and new / different password would create different "keys" which won't decrypt any existing Sync data - so the data is cleared.

Sync works fine for its intended purpose - keeping the user data of multiple Firefox installations synchronized among the devices that are connected to the same Sync account.

"We" don't hear about users successfully using Sync in lieu of a proper backup; but "we" have heard from many users who didn't "pull that off" successfully. Which is why almost all of us around here mention that Sync wasn't intended to be used as a backup service and shouldn't be used as such.

Thank you for your reply and information about the sync.

the-edmeister said

Second bookmarks on a "mobile device" (cell phone or tablet) probably won't have all the bookmarks that are on a laptop / desktop device. There is some sort of limit on which bookmarks are sent to "mobile devices", which typically don't have the data storage capacity of other devices.

I do see All the bookmarks i have om my PC on my FireFox mobile though. So it seems that works for me.

the-edmeister said

Third - the biggest issue with users trying to use Sync as a backup medium is when they change their Sync password; that action clears their data from the Sync server. The original password was used to create the encryption "keys" for the data that is sitting on the Sync; and new / different password would create different "keys" which won't decrypt any existing Sync data - so the data is cleared.

I see. So if i change my password for my account, the whole data will be wiped from the sync server and then will be renewed on there with the new password + data from the profile? Do i see this correctly?

the-edmeister said

Sync works fine for its intended purpose - keeping the user data of multiple Firefox installations synchronized among the devices that are connected to the same Sync account.

Sync does work perfectly fine. Don't get me wrong, i'm very pleased i finally made the full step away from Chrome to FireFox and my experience so far with FF is great.

Its just that, like i mentioned, my bookmarks change a lot on a regular basis and i was (and still am) looking for a way to automatically have a backup of them. Hence why i asked that if one of the 3 devices are good, that i was able to recover my bookmarks from that device back to the other devices if anything happens to those. If that was the case i'm ok with my current setup. If not, i'm still in need of an automatic way to keep them backed up. I used Xmarks for a while but since the takeover from Lastpass it went worse and worse and there aren't any signs of active development which usually means it will be ripe for the slaughter and be killed off at some point.