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Can I reopen windows on a new computer by transfering files from my old computer?

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by Mike

Mike
Mike
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My situation is probably unique but basically, I have a new computer. On my old computer I had a fair few windows open. Because of a lot of different issues (bad battery, no working charger etc.), I have access to the hard drive of my old computer but I can't turn it on anymore and it died before I could reopen most of the windows on my new computer. I'm able to use the hard drive as an external hard drive to transfer everything to the new computer as needed So, I know it's possible to get back bookmarks by transferring the files. I also know that there is a recovery file somewhere in the firefox folder which is used when hitting "Restore previous session" to get back the previous windows Would that mean it's possible to find the file from the old computer's hard drive and move it to the same folder on the new computer to use for the restore function in a similar was as the bookmarks?

My situation is probably unique but basically, I have a new computer. On my old computer I had a fair few windows open. Because of a lot of different issues (bad battery, no working charger etc.), I have access to the hard drive of my old computer but I can't turn it on anymore and it died before I could reopen most of the windows on my new computer. I'm able to use the hard drive as an external hard drive to transfer everything to the new computer as needed So, I know it's possible to get back bookmarks by transferring the files. I also know that there is a recovery file somewhere in the firefox folder which is used when hitting "Restore previous session" to get back the previous windows Would that mean it's possible to find the file from the old computer's hard drive and move it to the same folder on the new computer to use for the restore function in a similar was as the bookmarks?

All Replies (2)

Shashank Shekhar
Shashank Shekhar
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Hi Mike,

Firefox automatically makes backups of the bookmarks. These are stored in the bookmarkbackups folder.

Open the Bookmarks Manager; Press the Alt or F10 key to bring up the toolbar, and select Bookmarks. Hot key is <Control> (Mac=<Command>) <Shift> B.

Once the window is open, at the top of the page, press the button labeled Import and Backup. Select Restore. From the list, pick the file you want and click it.

The backups are stored in a jsonlz4 file named something like this; bookmarks-2021-06-29_1424_enD1GTH ya0JmicnYWg4V4g==.jsonlz4

In this example; 2021-06-29 = date created, 1424 = number of entries.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/restore-bookmarks-from-backup-or-move-them

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recover-lost-or-missing-bookmarks

https://support.mozilla.org/kb/forum-response-recover-bookmarks-after-update

Modified by Shashank Shekhar

Mike
Mike Question owner
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I'm sorry Shashank, but that has absolutely nothing to do with my question I only mentioned the bookmarks as a small piece to the main issue which is that I want to transfer the recovery file from my old harddrive onto my new one in a similar way to the bookmarks files Is that something that would be possible?