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Firefox Data file unavailable

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Old computer crashed and files have been copied to a thumb drive. How do I find the Firefox data file and get it transferred to the new computer? Right now I have NO bookmarks NOR passwords for any of a 100+ websites!

Old computer crashed and files have been copied to a thumb drive. How do I find the Firefox data file and get it transferred to the new computer? Right now I have NO bookmarks NOR passwords for any of a 100+ websites!

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Firefox uses two locations in the hidden "AppData" location for the Firefox profile folder. One location in "AppData\Roaming" for personal data like bookmarks and logins and another location in "AppData\Local" for temporary files like the disk cache.

Primary location used for the main profile that keeps your personal data (Root Directory on about:profiles).

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

You can copy certain files with Firefox closed from one profile folder or backup to the current profile folder to recover personal data. Note that best is to avoid restoring a full profile folder and only restore important files that are safe to restore.


  • 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) and key4.db (encryption key/primary password) for logins saved in the Password Manager
  • cert9.db for 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)
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