Firefox 3 upgrade switches bookmarks and other settings to older version

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Warning: This article applies only to users of Firefox 2.0 who lost bookmarks immediately after upgrading to Firefox 3.0 or Firefox 3.5. If you lost bookmarks at any other time, see Recover lost or missing Bookmarks.

Following the steps below will cause you to lose all bookmarks that were added in Firefox 3.0 or Firefox 3.5.

If you used a pre-release of Firefox 3 and then downgraded back to Firefox 2, you may find that you get an older version of bookmarks or passwords when you upgrade to Firefox 3. Firefox 3 only imports your Firefox 2 data once; and from that point on, uses the data which is in Firefox 3 format. Because you have used a pre-release of Firefox 3, you already have data in Firefox 3 format; which is what your latest installation of Firefox will use.


To retrieve your settings from Firefox 2:

  1. Open your profile folder:

    • Click the menu button Fx89menuButton, click Help and select More Troubleshooting Information.From the Help menu, select More Troubleshooting Information. The Troubleshooting Information tab will open.
    • Under the Application Basics section next to Profile FolderDirectory, click Open FolderShow in FinderOpen Directory. A window will open that contains your profile folder.Your profile folder will open.
    Note: If you are unable to open or use Firefox, follow the instructions in Finding your profile without opening Firefox.

  2. Click the Firefox menu Fx89menuButton and select Exit.Click the Firefox menu at the top of the screen and select Quit Firefox.Click the Firefox menu Fx89menuButton and select Quit.
    • Bookmarks and history: Rename places.sqlite to places.sqlite.bak and rename the .json files in the bookmarkbackups folder to .json.bak.
    • Passwords: Rename signons3.txt to signons3.txt.bak
Note: If the .txt file extension is not shown, rename signons3 to signons3bak
  1. Start Firefox again.

Firefox should then migrate your Firefox 2 data to Firefox 3. If this procedure doesn't work and you end up losing more information, you can restore by closing Firefox again and renaming the files back.

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