This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Why have I lost my entire firefox profile including bookmarks and history?

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

AKopper
AKopper
more options

I use a Mac and I had to force quit Firefox because it would not shut down otherwise. When I re-opened it my entire profile, including all my bookmarks and history and open tabs are gone, instead it opened up as if I am a new user, how do I fix this?

I use a Mac and I had to force quit Firefox because it would not shut down otherwise. When I re-opened it my entire profile, including all my bookmarks and history and open tabs are gone, instead it opened up as if I am a new user, how do I fix this?

All Replies (2)

Shadow110
Shadow110
more options

Look on your Desktop for a Folder called Old Firefox Data

Find your Profile and see if you have 2, your looking for the oldest dated one. If so it might be possible.

  • bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
  • bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder

fyi for the future :

Let us know if need further help.

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

It is possible that profiles.ini got corrupted or removed.

You can check if you have an orphaned profile that isn't registered in profiles.ini and that doesn't show in the Firefox Profile Manager. You can check that by opening the current profile folder via the about:profiles page and go up one level (..) to see if there are unlisted profiles present. If you have found an orphaned profile then you may want to recover some personal data or restore his profile.

See also "Profile was moved or renamed":

Note that you should never use "Choose Folder" to specify a folder that already contains files that do not belong to Firefox. Only use "Choose Folder" to recover an profile that isn't listed in the Profile Manager.