Backing up data from Firefox (1.5)

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I want to backup my (1) cookies, (2) bookmarks and (3) extensions, but I can’t find where Firefox stores them.

Anybody know? Many thanks!

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Google offers many options to take the pain out of this.

Your cookies, extensions, and bookmarks are stored under your Windows user profile at %userprofile%Application DataMozillaFirefoxProfiles. Bookmarks are called bookmarks.html, cookies are stored in cookies.txt.

I also manually back up the following files:

• cert8.db
• history.dat
• formhistory.dat
• key3.db
• prefs.js
• signons.txt.[/list]These will keep your history, remembered sign-ons, and preferences intact. Upon resinstalling Firefox you simply copy them to the new user profile, which is uniquely named each time Firefox creates it. Your extensions may be another story, as they need to register themselves with the application. Many extensions that offer configuration options provide an option to export your settings to a file. I find that it’s preferable to install extensions anew to ensure you have the latest versions.

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(Edited by Jon_Rick on 25-Jan-06 03:01. IT TURNS OUT THAT “APPLICATION DATA” IS A HIDDEN FOLDER, SO I JUST UNHID IT! I’LL BE BACK IN FEW MINUTES WITH MORE INFO )

Mark and John,

Thank you both for your replies.

I prefer to locate the files myself, so I can back them up using my own backup program.

But I seem to missing the files; indeed, I don’t have any Application Data directories (!), which I assume should be in C:Documents and Settings%userprofile%

How can this be? Thanks a lot.

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The folders are hidden by default. You’ll need to force Explorer to show them via Tools – Folder Options – View – Show Hidden Files and Folders. Probably good practice to do this anyway so that you know what else may be lurking on your system.

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Thanks Mark.

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The Bookmark Backup extension backs all of these up to seven folders, each named after the day-of-the-week. Backup occurs to the appropriately-named daily folder each time you close the browser down.

John

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Try MozBackup 1.4.3 found at http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/%5B/url%5D , or if you prefer I can email it to you (722kb). It was created specifically to back up a profile in Mozilla or Firefox. You are given options to select what you wish to backup (cookies, extensions, certificates, etc). It is very convenient and is also a restore utility. I have been using it for over a year and is great if you want to do a clean install.

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Hi,

As with John’s suggestion, MozBackup looks great. But I already have a backup program that I use for the rest of my files (e.g., My Documents), so I’d rather just include my Firefox bookmarks and cookies in my already existing backup than install another backup program.

Thanks.

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The easiest way to do it yourself is to back up the wholw “Profile” folder. Then if you ever need to use the backup, just put it back where it was.

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