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Firefox keeps creating duplicate bookmarks, and recovering bookmarks I deleted years ago. How do I make it stop?

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

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Firefox keeps creating duplicate bookmarks, and recovering bookmarks I deleted months ago.

As an experiment, out of frustration, I deleted all of my bookmarks - approximate 4,200 of them. This morning, almost 1500 have returned.

How can this be fixed?

Firefox keeps creating duplicate bookmarks, and recovering bookmarks I deleted months ago. As an experiment, out of frustration, I deleted all of my bookmarks - approximate 4,200 of them. This morning, almost 1500 have returned. How can this be fixed?

All Replies (3)

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Are you using sync?

If you have sync, and there is a problem anywhere, Shut Down Sync Immediately On All Devices to prevent the problem from spreading. Once the problem is fixed, perform the same repair on all computers/profiles before using sync again.

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When do you seeing the change? When the browser opens, while browsing?

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If you use Sync then best is to disconnect Sync temporarily during troubleshooting.

You can check for problems with the places.sqlite (bookmarks and history) and favicons.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder.

  • use "Verify Integrity" button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page
    in case errors are reported close and restart Firefox and retry

See also:

If "Verify Integrity" button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page cannot repair places.sqlite then remove all places.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder. Firefox will rebuild places.sqlite and restore the bookmarks from a recent JSON backup in the bookmarkbackups folder.

You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.