How To- Restore Your Lost Firefox 2 Bookmarks in Firefox 3

by Abhijeet on June 18, 2008

in Firefox, How To Tutorials

Mahesh was worried because after upgrading to Firefox 3, he didn’t see his bookmarks and hence asked me if there is any way to get them back.

The answer is yes. You can definitely get back your bookmarks because Firefox has a backup of bookmarks through which you can restore them

So here are the steps to restore lost bookmarks in Firefox 3 (only for Windows, sorry Mac guys )

For Windows XP

1: Click on Start- > Run

2: Type – > C:\Documents and Settings\YourWindowsUserName

3: Display the Hidden folders by clicking on Tools at the top the Folder Options-> View -> Show Hidden Files

4: Now you should see a folder named Application data. Double click on it and then go to Mozilla-> Firefox -> Profiles

5: Under Profiles, you’ll find a folder having the name default with a combination of numbers and letters. Just double click it and you’ll find a folder bookmarkbackups . In that you’ll find some HTML files named bookmark with a date associated with them.

6: Copy the bookmark file with the most recent date and paste it on your desktop.

7: Now go to Firefox-> Bookmarks -> Organize Bookmarks-> Import and Backup -> Import HTML and choose that file which you had saved on your desktop. And you are done. Your bookmarks should appear now.

For Windows Vista

1: Click Start and in the Search box Type C:\Users \ YourWindowsUserName

2: Display the Hidden folders by clicking on Tools at the top the Folder Options-> View -> Show Hidden Files

3: Now again here you’ll find Application Data. So click on it then Roaming – > Mozilla-> Firefox -> Profiles

Rest of the steps are same as steps 5, 6, 7 mentioned above.

So that was how you restore the bookmarks in Firefox 3 if you’ve lost them. Hope that helps.

  • Great guide...I was holding off upgrading because of this issue exactly! It happened to me once before...
  • Ted
    Thank you so much, you saved my ass. Firefox saved all my crappy bookmarks of cat pictures and stuff, and it deleted all my bookmarks for server hosting and web design. Thank you so much agian.
  • Abhijeet
    Aseem and Ted- I'm glad I could help you
  • Miss Renie
    Thanks so much for the help!!!
  • thats a great tip, you know we forget sometimes what we were doing even we forgets to bookmark and then try grabbing out, this tip surely gona helpme out someday
  • polobunny
    Easier to simply type %appdata% in Run. Goes directly to the current user Application Data folder. :)
  • A.Alaalas
    Doesn't work in Vista; neither does %appdata%. Only get View: icon size.
  • Robert
    To move your bookmarks from FF2 to FF3 you can use the trial version of of <a href="http://www.jordysoft.com/aucatalog/advanced-url-
    catalog.aspx">Advanced URL Catalog.

    With this software i imported my bookmarks from FF2 and then exported to FF3. Fast and easy.
  • Robert
    To move your bookmarks from FF2 to FF3 you can use the trial version of Advanced URL Catalog.

    With this software i imported my bookmarks from FF2 and then exported to FF3. Fast and easy.
  • Wish I found this page earlier. It's too late for me though. Thanks for sharing the info though, might be useful in the future
  • Thanks So Much For That , Iam So Happy To Finally Find A Solution To Do That , You Are Great Keep On
  • niming
    It's such a relief to have all my bookmarks back. (:
  • Andrew
    Very easy and worked. Thanks.
  • Paul
    Thank You very much for the information. I now have my lost bookmarks. Thanks again. Paul
  • Keanu
    Thank you so much, you're a life Saviour!
  • Aerryk
    THANK YOU! In my case, only half of my bookmarks were still there after upgrading to version 3. Everything out of order with first try at importing. Had to delete all bookmarks then importing worked with everything in correct order.
  • LM
    For mac users you can go to Bookmark menu--> organize bookmarks --> under third drop down is the option for backup and restore. there you will find the list of the restore dates and you can get your bookmarks back.

    I just had to get mine back from making the bookmarks go to default setup. Any way there you go
  • Casey
    I went to restore my bookmarks and received an error from FF3 on import. Investigated a little further and found that Firefox 3 was backing up my bookmarks as a .json file. What's up with that?
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