Have you looked in the computer's recycle/trash folder?

What exactly did you delete? Firefox automatically creates backups of the bookmarks.

I have. I deleted the only profile I had because I didn't realize there was an option to not show the profile selection screen each time I start up Firefox. Now sooo many bookmarks are gone.

If you ever used the refresh feature in Firefox then you may have an "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop. You can check System Restore points to see if you can find the bookmarks. You can look at this utility to browse System Restore points.

• System Restore Explorer
  http://nicbedford.co.uk/software/systemrestoreexplorer/

If you do not have the files in the recycle bin and can't restore them otherwise then you can try an undelete utility to see if you can recover a recent backup in the bookmarkbackups folder.

• Recuva: http://www.piriform.com/recuva

Note that recovering a file isn't a guarantee that the file isn't corrupted because clusters may have been reused in the meantime.

See also:

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile

I never used the refresh feature. And for some reason, I have no restore points. This is a huge loss, but it's looking more and more like there's very little that can be done.

How did you remove this profile? Did you do this recently? Don't you have any backup? Did you try Recuva?

cor-el said

How did you remove this profile? Did you do this recently? Don't you have any backup? Did you try Recuva?

It was removed from the profile selection screen. Yesterday I guess I don't Not yet

cor-el said

How did you remove this profile? Did you do this recently? Don't you have any backup? Did you try Recuva?

I ran Recuva, but I don't know what I'm looking for. There's an option for pictures, emails, etc., but no bookmarks.

Recuva keeps crashing anyway. Not sure how much help it'll be even if I can find the bookmarks in the huge number of files it found.

If you removed the profile folder then you first need to undelete this folder and after that restore files in the bookmarkbackups folder in this profile.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile

Firefox uses two locations for the Firefox profile folder, so make sure to look in the correct location. Location used for the main profile that keeps your personal data in "AppData\Roaming" (Root Directory on about:profiles).

• C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\

How do I undelete the folder? It never went to the Recycle Bin.

UnusuallyClueless said

How do I undelete the folder? It never went to the Recycle Bin.

If you tell an application to delete data, instead of doing it through Windows Explorer, then it may bypass the Recycle Bin and be completely unrecoverable.

But I don't think Firefox would let you delete your only profile, it needs at least one profile to run. ???

Make sure Windows is set to show hidden files and folders, in case Recuva needs that:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14201/windows-show-hidden-files

You're looking for files that would be along this path:

C:\Users\your-user-name\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles => specific profile folder\bookmarkbackups

I'm not sure. When I hit delete and confirmed it, it probably created a new one.

UnusuallyClueless said

When I hit delete and confirmed it, it probably created a new one.

Did you confirm that Firefox should delete the profile AND ALSO your data, or did it not ask you about the data?

Adding Screenshot

I probably deleted the data too, and that solves this issue.

UnusuallyClueless said

I probably deleted the data too, and that solves this issue.

Well, I was going to suggest taking a quick look just in case.

In the Windows Start menu search box, type or paste the following shortcut to launch the Profiles folder:

%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

Check in the folder(s) you find here to see whether there are any bookmarkbackups folders with recent/older files.

If not, you could see whether Recuva can find anything in that area (I don't know how it works, but this is the area where you would need to recover deleted files).

There are 3 profiles showing. Two are more recent. The older one has almost nothing in the folder. Definitely no bookmarkbackups folder.

Do you mean currently live on disk or in your Recuva'd files? If it's not in either place, I don't have any other source to suggest, sorry.

In Recuva it finds way too many files to look through. Finding what I'm looking for is going to take forever.