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DRAFT ARTICLE TO REPLACE Lost Bookmarks

DELETED STUFF (See Discussion)

Mozilla-based browsers like Firefox and Mozilla Suite store your bookmarks in the file "bookmarks.html" located in the profile folder. (see the linked articles for details). Windows 2000 and Windows XP users: Read this for help finding your stored bookmarks.

Firefox automatically makes up to five daily backups (although you must recover one of them before they are overwritten). There may also be a program error that prevents the display of your bookmarks, or you may have inadvertently logged in as another user.

You may also have experienced a program error that interferes with bookmarks display, or you may have logged in as a different user. You can follow this procedure to find and recover your bookmarks.

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This article deals with lost or missing bookmarks, recovery methods and preventing future losses. If changes you make to your bookmarks are not being saved or if you can't add new bookmarks, see the article Bookmarks not saved.

If you don't see your bookmarks when you open Firefox or Mozilla Suite, they are not necessarily lost. You may be able to recover them if you act soon enough.

Start here -- step-by-step bookmark recovery

Firefox automatically makes up to five daily backups, and you may have made other backups. If your bookmarks file has been lost or damaged, you can recover bookmarks from a backup. To recover bookmarks from the daily backups, you must act before they are all overwritten.

1. Make sure you are logged on to your computer with your usual logon name. On systems with multiple users, Firefox and Mozilla Suite store user data in a separate place for each login account.
2. If bookmarks appear in the Bookmarks Manager but not in the main menu, and they can't be edited, see this article for instructions.[1]
3. If bookmarks are missing after installing Firefox 2 on Windows, see Bookmarks missing after installing Firefox 2 on Windows.
4. Firefox and the Mozilla Suite allow creation of different user profiles. To make sure you have not changed to a different profile, see Multiple profiles and profile in use.
5. If none of the above solved your problem, see Restoring bookmarks from backup.
6. Other methods of recovery

Prevention

• Prevention
• If bookmarks are always lost after restarting, it may be because Firefox or Mozilla Suite is not properly shutting down. Read Bookmarks lost after computer restart/crash.

Bookmarks missing after installing Firefox 2 on Windows

Bookmarks may appear to be missing after upgrading to Firefox 2. This problem is caused by the installer not properly closing Firefox before doing the upgrade (bug 357922). To restore the missing bookmarks and fix other problems that may be related to the upgrade, you should reinstall Firefox.

1. If you don't have the installer already, download it.
2. Uninstall Firefox (your other settings will be unaffected).
3. Restart your machine (advanced users can instead kill firefox.exe processes using the Task Manager ).
4. Run the installer.

Multiple profiles and profile in use

Firefox and Mozilla Suite allow different users to have different settings and bookmarks. You may have inadvertently switched to another profile. Start the Firefox or Mozilla Suite Profile Manager and if multiple profiles are listed, select the other profile. If you receive a message that the profile is "in use" or if you are unable to start the original profile, read this article.

Restoring bookmarks from backup

The bookmarks file may become corrupted if your computer crashes, especially on Windows systems.[2] If no other measures have solved your bookmarks problem, you can restore your bookmarks from a backup.

You can use any bookmarks file that you may have saved as a backup, or in Firefox 1.5 and above, five daily bookmark backup files are saved in the bookmarkbackups folder, located in the Firefox profile folder. These files are named "bookmarks-(date).html". Usually you will want to use the most recent file that has your backups. You can also use the file size to help find the correct file. To make sure you have the right file, you can open and view it with your browser.

To find a backup file with your browser:

1. From a browser window, select File -> Open. Then navigate to the "bookmarksbackup" folder in the profile folder and open a file.

   Windows 2000 and XP users can navigate to the bookmarksbackup folder entering "%APPDATA%" for the file name, then go to the Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles folder, then xxxxxxxx.default (where xxxxxxx is any sequence of numbers and characters), then the bookmarkbackups folder [3].

2. When you find the correct backup file, save it to the desktop or a location of your choice, for safekeeping.
3. To import the file:
   • into Firefox: "Bookmarks -> Organize Bookmarks" or "Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks". From the Bookmarks Manager select "File -> Import... -> From File.
   • into Mozilla Suite: "Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks... -> Tools -> Import...".
4. Then navigate to the file you just chose and import it. Advanced method: You can instead rename the backup file "bookmarks.html", and use it to replace the incorrect file in your profile folder.

Other methods of recovery

• Check the Recycle Bin/Trash for a file called "bookmarks.html".
• (Windows) Run the error-checking tool Chkdsk (Windows 2000, XP) or ScanDisk (Windows 95, 98, ME) to see if you can recover any file fragments that contain your lost bookmarks. Look for files with names like FILE0001.chk or FILE0002.chk on the root directory (the files may be inside folders named FOUND.000 or similar). Open each file in Wordpad or Notepad and, if it contains bookmark data, rename it with an .html extension (for example, rename FILE0001.chk to bookmarks1.html). Finally, import the file using the Mozilla Suite or Firefox Bookmarks Manager [4].
• Look for a file called "bookmarks.bak".
• Use a file undelete utility to see if you can recover the file [5] [6]

Bookmarks lost after computer restart/crash

If bookmarks are always lost after restarting, it may be because Firefox or Mozilla Suite is not properly shutting down. The cause is not confirmed, but it's possible that it may be caused by a faulty or misconfigured plugin or extension, or even malware. To see if this is your problem, perform the following steps:

1. Use Firefox to browse the web for a while, then open the Windows Task Manager, select the Processes tab and find firefox.exe in the list
2. Use "File -> Exit" from the Firefox menu to close Firefox. If the firefox.exe process disappears from the list and it doesn't come back (this may take a few seconds if many tabs were open, or Firefox was using a lot of memory) this is normal. If your bookmarks are always missing whenever you restart the computer, you may be seeing bug 333907 which may cause .rdf file corruption and missing bookmarks. To avoid it, exit Firefox before shutting down your PC
3. If firefox.exe persists in the list of running processes, end the firefox.exe process by selecting it in the Windows Task Manager and clicking "End Process".
   • If the process disappears and doesn't come back, you may have an extension or plugin issue causing Firefox to persist in memory (for example, firefox.exe may remain active after running a Java applet). You should seek support for it (they can usually be fixed by making sure everything is up to date).
   • If the process disappears but comes back, you probably have a virus, or some other malware. Anti-virus software may not be able to detect it. If yours doesn't, seek support. See also Firefox.exe always open.

Prevention

• You can increase the number of saved backups by modifying the value of the browser.bookmarks.max_backups preference to the desired number.
• Periodically save your bookmarks to the backup location of your choice:
  • Firefox 1.5 and earlier: "Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks... -> File -> Export..."
  • Firefox 2: "Bookmarks -> Organize Bookmarks... -> File -> Export..."
  • Mozilla Suite: "Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks... -> Tools -> Export..."
• Do not power down your computer with Firefox/Mozilla Suite running.
• Some "computer clean-up" programs like System Wiper may delete your bookmarks. Make sure you do profile backups before using such programs.
• Back up your profile on a regular basis or at least back up your bookmarks. See Guide: Bookmark Back Up Extensions/Utilities and More.

Related bug reports

• Bug 193749 - bookmarks and personal preferences are lost after system crash due to power failure
• Bug 249150 - Bookmarks file is overwritten (deleted) randomly in Firefox versions without places
• Bug 260553 - Bookmarks disappear after power outage and/or crashes
• Bug 284099 - bookmarks lost when upgrading Firefox
• Bug 289615 - bookmark dataloss in abnormal windows shutdown, especially FAT32 systems
• Bug 305004 - Create a dated bookmark backup file periodically
• Bug 319196 - customized toolbar always reset to default on restart, bookmarks and search engines lost, unable to add search engines (localstore.rdf corruption on upgrade or crash)
• Bug 307558 - customized toolbars are reset to default because of corrupt localstore.rdf after search plugin update check
• Bug 357922 - Bookmarks missing, tabs broken etc. after installing Firefox 2

Category:Bookmarks Category:Issues (Firefox) Category:Issues (Mozilla Suite)