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Booting off new drive, Sync kept all info except for history.

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

tyrania210
tyrania210
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Recently booted off a new drive, when I originally signed in I had made a different firefox account since I was having verification issues. When I had that settled, I logged back into my old account which merged the two. It kept all of my old passwords and bookmarks I've made over the years, but it didn't keep my history. I've carefully sculpted my history for ages and I would really like to reaquire it somehow, let me know what's possible! Thanks.

Recently booted off a new drive, when I originally signed in I had made a different firefox account since I was having verification issues. When I had that settled, I logged back into my old account which merged the two. It kept all of my old passwords and bookmarks I've made over the years, but it didn't keep my history. I've carefully sculpted my history for ages and I would really like to reaquire it somehow, let me know what's possible! Thanks.

All Replies (3)

cor-el
cor-el
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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There are limitations with Sync for the history: New history is uploaded for 30 days and history expires in 60 days, so older history is lost. 

HISTORY_TTL:5184000; // 60 days
THIRTY_DAYS_IN_MS:2592000000; // 30 days
MAX_HISTORY_UPLOAD:5000
MAX_HISTORY_DOWNLOAD:5000

Note that Sync isn't designed to be used as a backup, but is merely meant to sync data between connected devices. Best is always to backup your personal data locally.

tyrania210
tyrania210 Question owner
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So even though all of the bookmarks and passwords save for years the history does not? I still have the same profile on the old hard drive.

cor-el
cor-el
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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You can copy places.sqlite from the old profile to transfer the bookmarks and history. This means you lose newer bookmarks, so you need to create a JSON bookmarks backup beforehand and restore this backup after you have copied the old places.sqlite.

You can copy certain files with Firefox closed to the current profile folder to transfer or recover personal data. Note that best is to avoid copying a full profile folder.

  • 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 (encrypted logins;32+) and key4.db (decryption key;58+) for Passwords saved in the Password Manager
    key3.db support ended in 73+; to use key3.db in 58-72, make sure to remove key4.db
  • cert9.db (58+) for (intermediate) certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
  • persdict.dat for words added to the spell 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)