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how to find an old password

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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I forgot my password and i got a new desktop. I dont want to reset my account because Firefox warn about loosing data in form of history, fav, passwords and such. How I can get my password without reseting and how to make sure to not loose any data if a reset my account?

I forgot my password and i got a new desktop. I dont want to reset my account because Firefox warn about loosing data in form of history, fav, passwords and such. How I can get my password without reseting and how to make sure to not loose any data if a reset my account?

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You only lose the data stored on the Sync server if you have to reset the password for the Firefox Account, data on your computer isn't affected.
You lose this data because only the original password can decrypt the data on the Sync server (data is encrypt locally with a key derived from the password before uploading).

If you still have the old device then you can copy logins.json and key4.db from the profile on the old device to the profile on the new device.

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.


You can copy files like these with Firefox closed to the current profile folder to recover specific data.

  • 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 (passwords) and key4.db (58+) or key3.db (57 and older) (decryption key) for Passwords saved in the Password Manager
    if you only have key3.db then make sure to remove an existing key4.db
  • cert9.db (58+) or cert8.db (57 and older) for (intermediate) certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
    if you only have cert8.db then make sure to remove an existing cert9.db
  • persdict.dat for words you added to the spelling 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)