Saving bookmarks

Bent Romnes · Post by **Bent Romnes** » 15 Dec 2010 8:07 am

How do I save or back up the bookmarks in my Firefox?
I tried the backup feature in Bookmarks but it made no sense...just gave me a line if jibber jabber

I want to make sure I have these copied, in the event I need to format my main hard drive

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 15 Dec 2010 9:03 am

Your Firefox information is in a file called a profile. You just need to make a copy of the profile file.
The profile will have a randomly generated name such as qwertyui.default .
Depending on your operating system, it may be in various different folders. For example on my XP it is on
C:\Documents and Settings\my_user_name\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla
Do a search on something like
firefox where is my profile
and you will find where to look.

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 15 Dec 2010 9:14 am

Bent:

If you have a standard Firefox installation in Windows 7, your Firefox profile and bookmarks are here:

C:\Users\Yourusernamewhateveritis\appdata\roaming\Mozilla

I think it's the same in Vista.

Copy that entire folder to a safe location periodically.

The Firefox program files are at C:\program files, just like any other program. But the profile and bookmarks are in C:\Users as noted above.

If you got a new computer you would:

1: Install Firefox on it. That puts the program in C:\program files and would make a new Mozilla folder in C:\Users.

Then you would go to your backup of the Mozilla folder and copy it into C:\Users so it overwrites the Mozilla folder created by the new installation.

I think bookmarks can be also be backed up, restored, exported as HTML, and imported as HTML through bookmarks/organize. This backup results in a json file and can be placed anywhere. I think this is JUST bookmarks, not your entire profile. Look at bookmarks/organize bookmarks and then poke "import and backup" at the top of the window to do this.

I use the first method--just copying the entire Mozilla folder from time to time.

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 15 Dec 2010 9:26 am

Bent:

I just tested the second method, using bookmarks/organize bookmarks/import and backup.

It worked. I backed up and restored and tested the restore in about 90 seconds.

You can accept the default choices. That will put the backup file on your desktop, but you could copy it anywhere--like on an external drive or a burned CD or a USB drive.

My backup file was named bookmarks-20-10-12-15.json.

To restore it, go back to "import and backup" and choose restore from the menu. Then choose that desktop file.

Bent Romnes · Post by **Bent Romnes** » 15 Dec 2010 10:59 am

Mitch, thanks so much. I had done it right the first time then. I had backed up to an extra hard driveand the file is called bookmarks[date] json.
What threw me was the short little line of nonsense. Guess I was expecting to see all my bookmarks or something

Earnest, thanks as well for your input. I will see if I can find it and copy that as well..I guess that would include remembered passwords etc.

Cal Sharp · Post by **Cal Sharp** » 15 Dec 2010 1:46 pm

There's a bunch of FF add-ons to manage, backup and sync your bookmarks. If you're into cloud computing Xmarks Sync is a good one. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2410/