Copying Firefox Bookmarks

If you have two computers, even temporarily when you are upgrading, you probably want to copy your Firefox bookmarks from one computer to the other. In my case, I have a notebook computer and a desktop computer. My notebook is my primary computer, so I want to copy its bookmarks to the desktop easily.

Both of these computers are on my home network. On my desktop, I have a batch file called get_bookmarks.bat, with a shortcut to it on my Windows XP Desktop. To copy my notebook's Firefox bookmarks to my desktop, I just double-click the icon.

The batch file (get_bookmarks.bat) has the following (all one long line!):

copy "\\Aiel\public\I8600\tas\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\uep6jh3s.default\bookmarks.html" "C:\Documents and Settings\tas\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\default.jim"

In this case, uep6jh3s.default and default.jim are the default profile names on the Firefox installations on the two computers. Profile names are random -- the second one happens to look like a name.

Note the use of double-quotes to surround the file names. This is required because of the spaces in the directory name "Application Data." "\\" means the next word is the name of a specific computer. Aiel happens to be a Linux computer, which serves as the backup for all my Windows boxes (using Karen's Replicator). Linux can do Windows file sharing by using the "Samba" package, which is included with almost all Linux distributions. "I8600" is the directory where I back up my Inspiron 8600:

Note that, with default Windows XP settings, the Application Data folder is hidden. You have to open Windows Explorer, then Tools, Folder Options, View, and click on the radio button that says "Show hidden files and folders."