Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

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 do I reset my sync key without losing my data?

more options

I am in Chile and my laptop hard drive crashed which was synched to my desktop back in states. I need to resync with my replaced hard drive but do not have my sync key. I DO NOT want to lose the sync data so the normal reset is not an option. Help!

I am in Chile and my laptop hard drive crashed which was synched to my desktop back in states. I need to resync with my replaced hard drive but do not have my sync key. I DO NOT want to lose the sync data so the normal reset is not an option. Help!

All Replies (3)

more options

If you change your sync key, all your data will be erased from the sync server.

more options

Yeah, that screws me. How can I find out what my sync key is? What's the point of having a user name and password if it isn't going to let you access your own data? Is there anyway to find out from Mozilla what my sync key is?

more options

The sync key is used to encrypt and decrypt the data going to and coming from the sync server. The sync key is stored on every device that has been connected to that sync account. It isn't stored anywhere else, especially on the Mozilla sync server - no one else has access to your data in an unencrypted format when only you have the "key".

Wasn't your old hard drive returned to you after installation of the new drive? Pop it into a USB enclosure and see if you can recover your Firefox Profile data.
https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Recovering+important+data+from+an+old+profile
You need the key3.db & signons.sqlite files, specifically, to retrieve your sync key.