Lost bookmarks

If you no longer see your bookmarks, they are not necessarily lost. This article outlines a few methods of retrieving "lost" bookmarks, and also deals with future prevention.

Recovering lost bookmarks

Profile in use

If you saw the profile manager when starting Firefox/Mozilla Suite and it said your profile was in use, so you created a new one and no longer see your bookmarks, read this article.

Recovery procedure if you haven't closed since losing bookmarks

If you haven't closed Firefox/Mozilla Suite after you first noticed you lost your bookmarks, you may be able to recover them using this method. In your profile folder, look for files whose names start with "bookmarks" (they can have different extensions). The largest one or the one with the latest modified date. If you wish, you can open the file with Firefox/Mozilla Suite or any browser to make sure it's the right one. Do not completely close Firefox/Mozilla Suite yet. Copy the chosen file to a safe location (such as My Documents or the desktop on Windows XP) and rename it "bookmarks.html", if it isn't already. Now, close Firefox/Mozilla Suite and copy the file back into your profile folder, overwriting the existing bookmarks.html file. Restart Firefox/Mozilla Suite, and check your bookmarks.

Other methods of recovery

• Check the Recycle Bin/Trash for a file called bookmarks.html
• Run chkdsk (Windows 2000, XP) or scandisk (Windows 95, 98, ME) to see if they recover any files.
• Use a file undelete utility to see if you can recover the file. [1] [2]

Prevention

• Do not power down your computer with Firefox/Mozilla Suite running.
• Some "cleaner" programs like System Wiper wipe out Firefox bookmarks. Make sure you do backups before using these types of programs.
• Backup your bookmarks. Many extensions exist that do this.
• Tell us details of how you lost your bookmarks on this thread.