This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How to create a recovery key without my password?

  • 4 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

more options

Dear community, I forgot my password for my firefox account. To sync my new laptop I need it... So I found the article, which says, I can create a recovery key and use it to keep all my settings after I changed my password. But to create a recovery key, the system asks me to fill in my old password. So I can not create a recovery key. Maybe I make a mistake somewhere on the way... Is there anybody, who can help me? Thank you very much! Petra

Dear community, I forgot my password for my firefox account. To sync my new laptop I need it... So I found the article, which says, I can create a recovery key and use it to keep all my settings after I changed my password. But to create a recovery key, the system asks me to fill in my old password. So I can not create a recovery key. Maybe I make a mistake somewhere on the way... Is there anybody, who can help me? Thank you very much! Petra

All Replies (4)

more options

Hi Petra, I don't think you can create recovery keys if you cannot log in to the account...

However, if you still have your old computer, you can move over Firefox's data files: they are all stored locally on disk. Is that still possible?

more options

Thanks for your quick answer! I just saved all the bookmarks (they were the most important files) and transferred them to my new laptop. I saved that file, so I can use it to install it again after I changed my password. Thank you!

more options

I would like to add, that after creating a new password all my settings were still there. So nothing bad happened :-) Now I am going to create a recovery key ;-)

more options

You can copy certain files with Firefox closed to the current profile folder to transfer or recover personal data. Note that best is to avoid copying a full profile folder.


  • bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
  • favicons: favicons.sqlite
  • bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
  • cookies.sqlite for the Cookies
  • formhistory.sqlite for saved autocomplete Form Data
  • logins.json (encrypted logins;32+) and key4.db (decryption key;58+) for Passwords saved in the Password Manager
    key3.db support ended in 73+; to use key3.db in 58-72, make sure to remove key4.db
  • cert9.db (58+) for (intermediate) certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
  • persdict.dat for words added to the spell checker dictionary
  • permissions.sqlite for Permissions and possibly content-prefs.sqlite for other website specific data (Site Preferences)
  • sessionstore.jsonlz4 for open tabs and pinned tabs (see also the sessionstore-backups folder)