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Recovering my Bookmarks and other Firefox settings from an old hard drive.

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

malcolm13
malcolm13
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I have lost access to my old laptop and have had to purchase a new laptop. I do have access to to my old laptop's hard drive. Is there anyway I can retrieve the bookmarks and other settings form the old system hard drive to use in the new Firefox installed on my new laptop?

I have lost access to my old laptop and have had to purchase a new laptop. I do have access to to my old laptop's hard drive. Is there anyway I can retrieve the bookmarks and other settings form the old system hard drive to use in the new Firefox installed on my new laptop?

All Replies (2)

FredMcD
FredMcD
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Everything should be in your profile folder. Copy the folder As-Is to a thumb drive.
Then Copy the folder to the new system.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-run-firefox-when-profile-missing-inaccessible

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox#Navigating_to_the_profile_folder

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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You can copy specific files with Firefox closed to the current profile folder to recover personal 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)

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.

The profile folder is in a hidden location in "AppData\Roaming".

Location used for the main profile that keeps your personal data (Root Directory on about:profiles).

  • C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\