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Restore Deleted Passwords

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I accidentally deleted all of my saved passwords from my old computer not realizing I deleted the passwords from my Mozilla profile. When I logged into my new computer all of my passwords are gone. How can I recover my passwords?

I accidentally deleted all of my saved passwords from my old computer not realizing I deleted the passwords from my Mozilla profile. When I logged into my new computer all of my passwords are gone. How can I recover my passwords?

Todas las respuestas (5)

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Do you still have access to the old computer?

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I do! I'm using it as a business computer and thought I'd delete my personal information since my employees have access to it now. Didn't realize I could've just signed out instead of deleting all my passwords and bookmarks.

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Hi PSUbeard, I suggest trying to mine the password files out of a restore point and using those to replace the current files. This is slightly complicated for a number of reasons, but let's see whether we can do it.

The idea is to retrieve files from a recent restore point without the damage that usually occurs from doing an actual system restore. I do not recommend using system restore.

On the old computer:

First, set Windows to show hidden files and folders:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14201/windows-show-hidden-files

Next, try one of these programs:

Within each restore point you check, you can explore along this path to see whether you can find the critical files:

\Users\your-user-name\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

You are looking for:

  • logins.json
  • key3.db
  • key4.db (if present)

Copy the files out to the desktop as a set, since the key3.db/key4.db file is used to encrypt the passwords in logins.json.

On the new computer:

You'll want to removing the existing logins.json and key3.db/key4.db from your new profile folder. This may cause an issue with the certificates file, but you can afford to lose/regenerate that.

To open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder, use either

  • "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Troubleshooting Information
  • (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
  • type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, on the Profile Folder row, click the "Open Folder" button. This should launch a new window listing various files and folders in Windows Explorer.

Leaving that window open, switch back to Firefox and Exit, either:

  • "3-bar" menu button > Exit
  • (menu bar) File > Exit

Pause while Firefox finishes its cleanup, then you can swap in the recovered files.

Start Firefox back up again. Does it find your logins?

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I tried my best to follow all the steps. All the passwords were restored on my old laptop but when I log in to my new laptop, all the passwords are still not there. Am I missing a step?

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Hmm, I think you have exhausted my knowledge of this feature. What do you think about using a Sync account to share data across between your two installations of Firefox? Please make backups on both ends in case something goes wrong...