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.

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

I can't open a bookmark backup file with json extension

more options

I opened LIBRARY folder in the TOOLS and clicked BACKUP so that I can have a copy of my bookmarks to transfer to another laptop.

I saved the file on the DESKTOP. It has a json extension. Can't open it. How can I open it. Is my registry corrupt? Thanks, cp

I opened LIBRARY folder in the TOOLS and clicked BACKUP so that I can have a copy of my bookmarks to transfer to another laptop. I saved the file on the DESKTOP. It has a json extension. Can't open it. How can I open it. Is my registry corrupt? Thanks, cp

Valgt løsning

The only use of a JSON backup is to restore the file via the Bookmarks Manager in a Firefox profile, that will replace all current bookmarks with the ones in that JSON backup.
A JSON backup is a text file in object format and is not very readable.
If you want a readable backup then export the bookmarks to an HTML file.

Why do you want to open that file?

Les dette svaret i sammenhengen 👍 4

All Replies (9)

more options

Do you want to restore it to Firefox, or just look at the contents of that file?

more options

Valgt løsning

The only use of a JSON backup is to restore the file via the Bookmarks Manager in a Firefox profile, that will replace all current bookmarks with the ones in that JSON backup.
A JSON backup is a text file in object format and is not very readable.
If you want a readable backup then export the bookmarks to an HTML file.

Why do you want to open that file?

more options

Just wanted to look at the contents to make sure that the file is complete before I copy it to another place. Thanks, cp

more options

Thanks, html solved my problem. cp

more options

I want to extract the tag information along with the bookmarks. I can't do that from the HTML version. Can I do it with json? Is there any documentation of the bookmark file json format?

more options

HTML bookmarks files don't contain the Tag data. The Tag data is in the JSON bookmarks backup file.


See this Google search of the Mozilla Developer Center for JSON documentation.

more options

I can parse JSON files in general, but the one with my bookmarks is 745K. I could poke around in it for a week before finding what I want. Is there some place where the structure of this particular file is documented? How do I associate URLs with tags, given my JSON file?

more options

Never mind, I figured it out.

more options

@anewc2 Could you please give me a hint on how you figured it out. I have the same problem and I can't make heads or tails of my JSON file without several days of cutting and pasting... Thank you.