Backup Firefox Bookmarks

Make sure you don't lose your favourite URLs. Joe Cassels gets backing up.

If you ever need to reinstall Windows or you move to a new PC, you'll need to transfer all your files and settings or restore them from a backup. It's easy to remember to back up data files and even email, but we often overlook browser bookmarks; the list of URLs that you save when using the web.

Internet Explorer enables you to export its Favourites by using the Import and Export option that you can find on the File Menu. You'll need to choose Tools, Menu bar to display menus if you're using IE7. It's then a matter of working through the wizard, opting to export favourites and providing a file name and location for the exported file. To restore them, run the Import and Export wizard as before, but select Import Favourites and browse to the file you saved earlier. It may be a good idea to save the exported file on a removable disc or flash drive if you're moving it to a new PC.

Firefox does things a little differently. You'll need to use the Bookmarks Manager, which enables you to group and arrange bookmarks as well as back them up and restore them. The walkthrough demonstrates how to export and import your bookmarks as an HTML file.

If you're moving to a new PC or a fresh installation of Windows with a clean version of Firefox installed, you may need to do a little tweaking once you've imported your bookmarks. If you use the Bookmarks Tool bar, which presents a selection of your favourite bookmarks as buttons in a tool bar for one click access, you may find that your old entries haven't been imported properly. You'll see them in a Bookmarks Tool bar folder in the Bookmarks Manager, but they won't display in the tool bar This is because you'll have two folders named Bookmarks tool bar Just open the one containing your chosen bookmarks, highlight each of them by clicking the first one, holding down shift and clicking the last one, then drag them into the other Bookmarks Tool bar folder. They should now display correctly in your browser.

Back up your bookmarks
Use the Firefox Bookmarks Manager to backup and restore your bookmarks.


1
Launch Firefox and choose Bookmarks, Organize Bookmarks. This launches the Bookmarks Manager, where you can edit, move and rename existing bookmarks. To back them up choose File, Export...


2
Browse to the location where you want to save your exported bookmarks and provide a file name The default one is bookmarks.html. Click Save to export them to an HTML file, which could be opened by any browser.


3
If you need to import your bookmarks on a different computer, open Firefox and launch the Bookmarks Manager as above. Choose File, Import..., From File. Now browse to the bookmarks.html file that you saved and click Open.