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

Why can only a small percentage of my bookmarks be transferred to or restored from an HTML file?

  • 2 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
  • 12 views
  • Last reply by Z.Z.

more options

I am attempting to move my bookmarks to a new computer. Firefox sync very pointedly did nothing, and trying to create a backup on a flash drive and then restoring that backup was equally fruitless. However, saving my bookmarks as an HTML file from my old computer and then importing them into the new one caused them to finally appear. SOME of them appeared. Most of my bookmarks seem to be missing from the HTML file, and trying again to make a file of my bookmarks from my previous computer still fails to store all of them.

Therefore, I suppose there are a few questions: 1. Is there a limit to how many bookmarks you can save in your HTML file? 1a. How do you get around this limit? 2. Is there a method of transferring my bookmarks to a new computer that will actually work?

I am attempting to move my bookmarks to a new computer. Firefox sync very pointedly did nothing, and trying to create a backup on a flash drive and then restoring that backup was equally fruitless. However, saving my bookmarks as an HTML file from my old computer and then importing them into the new one caused them to finally appear. SOME of them appeared. Most of my bookmarks seem to be missing from the HTML file, and trying again to make a file of my bookmarks from my previous computer still fails to store all of them. Therefore, I suppose there are a few questions: 1. Is there a limit to how many bookmarks you can save in your HTML file? 1a. How do you get around this limit? 2. Is there a method of transferring my bookmarks to a new computer that will actually work?

All Replies (2)

more options

Sounds that the places.sqlite file on the old computer is corrupted. You can try to use a JSON in the bookmarkbackups folder to see if that allows to restore all bookmarks.

  • Bookmarks > Show All Bookmarks > Import & Backup > Restore > Choose File

See also:

more options

The JSON does not work, and has already been tried. Notably, when I try to save my bookmarks as JSON it always lists a size of 0kb.