Backing up Firefox Bookmarks

Reader Frank Lid wrote to ask:

hi,
Do you know how I can back up my foxfire bookmarks? I used Firefox some time ago, and had a problem with it which required a reload, thereby wiping out my bookmarks....I would like to back them up, but can't find a "favorites" file like IE has.

Thanks,
Frank
Firefox has a convenient function in its Bookmark Manager (Bookmarks / Organize Bookmarks). This will open the BookMark Manager in a new window. Then, just click on File, Export and choose where to save the bookmarks file. By default, the file will be named bookmarks.html.

Of course, if you ever need to restore the file — or to import it into a new Firefox installation — there is a similar Import function there.

That makes it easy to back up the Firefox bookmarks. It also makes it very easy to take a copy of them with you -- on a floppy disk, a CDROM or a USB Flash Drive, or on any type of memory card (Compact Flash, Memory Stick, SD/MMC card, etc) if you have a card reader to take along.

I usually do it the hard way, though — just out of habit because early browsers didn't export and import well. Plus, my way, I always have a backed up copy from my nightly backup across my network using Karen's Replicator Firefox actually stores the bookmarks all in one file, which you can even open with your web browser. You might need to know that, if somehow Firefox becomes corrupted and you are unable to get it to start up or to export the bookmarks.

That makes it easy to back up the Firefox bookmarks. It also makes it very easy to take a copy of them with you -- on a floppy disk, a CDROM or a USB Flash Drive, or on any type of memory card (Compact Flash, Memory Stick, SD/MMC card, etc) if you have a card reader to take along.

The file is located in the Documents and Settings directory, here: C:\Documents and Settings\[userID]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[userprofile]\bookmarks.html . "userID" is your userID on the computer. [userprofile] is some semi-random string that Firefox creates for a profile.

The important thing to realize is — unlike the Internet Explorer Favorites, which are windows shortcuts, the bookmarks in Firefox are atored as a file. Specifically, they are stored in a standard HTML file that is routinely edited by Firefox itself, whenever you add, delete or rename a bookmark. This file is called bookmarks.html.

Since it is a file, you can copy it to a flash drive, copy it to a floppy drive, copy it to another computer, copy it into another computer's Firefox profile folder -- start Firefox and have those bookmarks intantly available.

Unfortunately, with Windows default settings (Win95/98/Me/2000/XP), the "Application Data" directory is one of the "hidden" directories. If you haven't already told Windows to show the hidden files and directories, you need to make that change.

"userprofile" is a profile name that Firefox created for you when you ran it the first time. If you see several profiles, just back up one directory (to the "Firefox" directory) and double-click on the file profiles.ini — it will open in a text editor (probably Notepad), and you can read which profile is the current one.

I detailed the steps to unhide the hidden files and directories in my article Hidden File Extensions in Windows.