password
Hi I just had to reset my windows installation, I am currently signed in on my account on my phone. I was signed in on the computer as well before the reset, after the reset I tried to sign in and I realized I have forgotten my password. I really don't want to have to reset my password because I just now learned that it resets all of my passwords and history. I would love to know how I can move forward without the loss of all my passwords.. Short of using my phone account to look Each one and physically write down the passwords. I mean if I have to, I have to.. but I would really rather not. please if you could help I would really appreciate it..
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Hey Twisted! Hate hearing that. I learned that there should be a folder on Windows that saved some data from before the reset. I believe your passwords could be hiding in there. The folder is called Windows.old.
The Windows Reset typically gives you options for whether/where to save your data. Typically that would be in a folder named: C:\Windows.old
If you find that folder: Set Windows to show hidden files and folders -- this Microsoft article has the steps:
Then explore that folder up to this point (if it exists): C:\Windows.old\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\
How you could backup passwords in the future: I believe they have already invented a export passwords option but only on desktop. So that might be something you could use in the future. But its dangerous because that single export file could have passwords to all your important sites in a single file. So I probably wouldn't do that without removing the most important logins & passwords first. I'm talking about passwords for emails, banks, crypto and anything else that holds sensitive info.
It might be better to just save a copy of the entire Firefox profile folder but you would have to remember to copy it over to a usb stick or external drive before doing any future desktop OS wipes. You have to remember to back up browser data in addition to photos and documents.
Firefox saves passwords in 2 files in your profile folder: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile#w_your-important-data-and-their-files
- key4.db
This file stores your key database for your passwords. To transfer saved passwords, you must copy this file along with the following file.
- logins.json
Encrypted information about your saved usernames and passwords.
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