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How can i add bookmarks from my old hard drive to new hard drive on the same computer without overwriting the new bookmarks on my new hardrive? Cheers

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  • Last reply by John99

D.Shikely
D.Shikely
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The old hard drive was operating on Xp and new hard drive is Windows 7, if this makes any difference.

The old hard drive was operating on Xp and new hard drive is Windows 7, if this makes any difference.

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John99
John99
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Unfortunately there is no simple method and, the workaround is far from perfect. The .json files Firefox uses overwite the existing bookmarks but the .html option appends and does not overwrite.

First of all backup all bookmarks on each hard drive. The best method of doing that is to backup the Firefox profiles, that captures the bookmarks databases (places.sqlite) and the autobackups that Firefox holds.

  1. First ensure you have the largest databsae on the current install of Firefox. If necessary
    1. Locate the Firefox Profile on the old drive
    2. Open Firefox and find the profile that is currently in use.
  2. Now use HTML backups to transfer from the smaller database the basic bookmarks.
    1. Close Firefox & if the old database is the largest one use the Operating System copy option to overwrite the existing places.sqlite so that Firefox now uses the old database
    2. Reopen Firefox but this time open using the old profile. The easiest method of that may be to disable the new drive from the Bios or alternatively use Firefox profile manager and register the old profile location and open firefox with that profile
    3. Export the bookmarks from the old profile using the Firefox Library and the HTML option.
    4. Close Firefox, reopen new version/newprofile and import the HTML.

You now have the largest database of complete bookmarks with tags etc. , plus additional bookmarks from the smaller database added on. Obviously you may have some duplication