ten mov.es

If you’re using Windows XP, recovering from a crash or whatever, and find that your Firefox bookmarks (and bookmarklets and bookmark toolbar) have disappeared, here’s what to do:

1. Find your profile in c:\Documents and Settings\[your XP user name]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

2. There should be a subfolder there called bookmarkbackups. Find the most recent bookmarks html file in there (usually with a date after the ‘bookmarks’ bit.

3. Copy it to somewhere safe and rename the existing one bookmarks.html.

4. Copy it to the default profiles folder (up one level from the bookmarkbackups folder, deleting the existing bookmarks.html file.

5. Close Firefox if it’s running.

6. Run Firefox. Your old bookmarks should be restored.

(And, while I’m at it, here’s a solution if your Firefox browser refuses to remember any of your changed settings in toolbars etc when you close it, resetting everything back to what it was before. The same bug — likely to be fixed soon — also deletes your search engines in the search box to the right of the address box. This fix will fix both problems:

• Locate the localstore.rdf file in the same place as above.
• Delete it.
• Restart Firefox. You should be good to go. Thanks, GreenKri.)

(An earlier version of this guide can be found at Loose Wire Blog.

Filed under: hard