Recover lost or missing Bookmarks

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  • Revision id: 57993
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  • Creator: sillysocks
  • Comment: Revised wording to clarify and added more detail to some sections
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  • Reviewed by: heyjoni
  • Is approved? Yes
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If your bookmarks have disappeared, it may be possible to recover them. This article explains why bookmarks may appear to be missing and how to get them back.

Missing Bookmarks Toolbar

If you were using the Bookmarks Toolbar for quick access to your favorite bookmarks and the toolbar is now missing, you may have turned off the option to display the Bookmarks Toolbar. To turn it back on:

  • Right-click on an empty section of the navigation bar and select Bookmarks Toolbar in the pop-up menu.
  • On the menu bar, click View, select Toolbars, and then select Bookmarks Toolbar.

For more information, see the Bookmarks Toolbar - Display your favorite websites at the top of the Firefox window article.

Missing Google bookmarks

To access your saved Google Bookmarks, go to www.google.com/bookmarks and log in. Once there, you can export your Google Bookmarks and import them into Firefox if you wish. For more, see Google Toolbar is no longer compatible with Firefox - Here are some alternatives.

No bookmarks shown after installing an add-on

If you have restarted Firefox after installing an add-on and your bookmarks are gone, it's possible that Firefox did not close properly before restarting itself. To recover your bookmarks, restart your computer.

Unable to find your bookmarks after importing them

If you have imported your bookmarks from another browser, they may appear in the Bookmarks menu in a specific folder. To find your imported bookmarks, do the following:

  1. Click the menu button Fx89menuButton to open the menu panel. Click Bookmarks and then click the Manage bookmarks bar at the bottom.
  • Depending on the type of browser from which you imported, your bookmarks may appear in a specially named folder in the Bookmarks list.
    • Internet Explorer - Folder name is From Internet Explorer.
    • Opera - Folder name is From Opera.
    • Bookmarks imported from other browsers follow a similar pattern.
  • If your source bookmarks were stored in a hierarchy of folders, the folder structure is preserved inside the specially named folder.

If desired, you can move your imported bookmarks to other folders. For more information, see Bookmarks in Firefox.

Default set of bookmarks is shown in the Bookmarks folder

Your bookmarks are associated with the profile that you are using. For most Firefox users, only the default profile is used. There may be instances when you wish to create a new profile in Firefox. When this new profile is activated, it contains the default set of bookmarks which may give you the impression that you have lost your personal bookmarks. This troubleshooting sequence helps you to identify if a new profile has been created and how to recover your bookmarks from the previous profile.

Determining if Firefox has created a new profile

  1. Go to the Firefox profile folder.
  2. If there is only one profile folder, then stop.
    Note: Each profile folder is named something like the following:
    xxxxxxxx.<ProfileName>
    where xxxxxxxx represents a random string of 8 characters and <ProfileName> corresponds to the name of the profile. For example, the folder containing the default profile is named xxxxxxxx.default.
  3. If you have multiple profile folders in this location, that means you have multiple profiles. If you have more than one profile folder, then it is likely that a new profile has been created in Firefox. In this case, you need to change the profile Firefox is currently using to the profile that contains your saved bookmarks. You can do this by opening the Firefox Profile Manager and choosing the correct profile. See the Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles article for details.




Based on information from Lost bookmarks (mozillaZine KB)