News (January 2010)

All of the extensions on this site have been successfully tested on Firefox 3.6. If you find any compatibility issues please e-mail me with the full details of the problem.

If Firefox lists an extension as incompatible then please reinstall it using the links on this page.

Bookmark Backup

Version 0.4.11

Install

Install Bookmark Backup 0.4.11

Description

Bookmark Backup is a simple extension that helps to keep your bookmarks (and optionally other Firefox settings) safe. Each time Firefox is closed, a copy of your bookmarks file will be made to a backup location. If Firefox's bookmarks become corrupted or lost, find the most recent uncorrupted backup and copy it into your profile folder. By default the backups can be found in the Backups folder inside Firefox's profile folder, though this location can be changed in Bookmark Backup's Options dialog.

Additionally, thanks to code contributed by Nickolay Ponomarev, other files may also be backed up along with the bookmarks file. You can specify which files to backup in the Options dialog. Just check the box for each type of setting you want backed up, any other files can be listed in the following text box separated by a | character. Please refer to the MozillaZine Knowledge Base for details about what data is stored in each file.

Please remember, this extension should be used in addition to a regular profile backup not as a replacement.

Note: Firefox 1.5 (and later) makes its own backup of your bookmarks, therefore this extension is only useful if you want to backup other settings or to control where the backups are stored.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Why is the backed up copy of bookmarks.html an old file?

Firefox 3 and later now store their bookmarks in a file called places.sqlite, the bookmarks.html file is no longer used. You can confirm this by checking the last modified date of the original bookmarks.html file in your profile.

2. I have lost my bookmarks, how do I restore the backup?

  1. Close Firefox.
  2. Find the Backups folder in your profile folder (or in your custom backup location, if configured).
  3. Go into the sub-folder from yesterday (don't use today's backup, it will be corrupted). Copy whichever files you wish to restore into your profile folder.
  4. Restart Firefox.

If you use Windows and don't know how to perform any of these steps please feel free to e-mail me and I'll try to walk you through them.

3. Does this extension work on Mac OS?

Maybe, some people say it does, other say it doesn't. I don't own a Mac so I can't confirm one way or the other.

4. Why is there a bookmarkbackups folder in my profile? How do I disable it?

The bookmarkbackups folder is created by Firefox itself (this feature was added in Firefox 1.5). The two sets of backups should not conflict, however if you wish to disable the built-in backup you can do so by setting browser.bookmarks.max_backups to 0 (this requires Firefox 2 or later).

5. Will you add support for, timestamped backups, more than 7 days of backups, less than 7 days of backups, scheduled backups, weekly instead of daily backups, or backing up files outside the profile?

At the moment I have no plans for any of those features.

6. Can I use wildcards in the other files box?

To a limited extent yes, you can backup a whole folder simply by typing it's name (e.g. Cache). You can backup a set of files with the same extension by typing *.extension (e.g. *.rdf), using the * operator in any other position will not work.

7. Can I use paths in the other files box?

Bookmark Backup supports primitive relative paths, use a forward slash (/) as the path separator. There's currently no way to backup files outside the profile folder.

Contributors

Release History

0.4.11

  • Added support for the latest Firefox 4 nightlies (2010-07-02 and above).

0.4.10

  • Updated the list of backed up files for current trunk builds (2008-08-18 and above).

0.4.9

  • Added support for Firefox 3 final.

0.4.8

  • Updated the list of backed up files for current trunk builds (2008-03-14 and above).

0.4.7

  • Updated the list of backed up files for current trunk builds (2007-12-06 and above).

0.4.6

  • Updated the list of backed up files for current trunk builds (2007-06-21 and above).

0.4.5

  • Updated the list of backed up files for current trunk builds (2007-06-18 and above). Thanks Tony E.

0.4.4

  • Updated the list of backed up files for current trunk builds (2007-05-22 and above).

0.4.3

  • Updated the list of backed up files for Firefox 2.0.0.2 and current trunk builds (thanks Alan Baxter and Tony E).

0.4.2

  • Added support for Firefox 2 final. Due to my lateness in getting the file to the translators not all locales are ready yet, if your locale is missing please check back later, I'll update the extension and this post as locales come in. The following locales are included at the time of writing (2006-12-01): ca, cs-CZ, de-DE, en-US, es-ES, fr-FR, hu-HU, it-IT, ja, ko-KR, sk, th-TH, zh-CN, zh-TW.
  • Added a Korean (ko-KR) locale, contributed by Junyeob Kim of Mozilla Update Korea.

0.4.1

  • Fixed a potential backup failure when the bookmarks file can't be found.
  • Added a Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR) locale, contributed by Pedro Failla.

0.4

  • Partially rewritten to make the extension more reliable, additionally it now performs backups both at shutdown and every 2 hours. The backup interval can be tweaked by setting the bookmarkbackup.interval pref to a value in minutes, you can also enable/disable startup/shutdown backups with the bookmarkbackup.startupBackup and bookmarkbackup.shutdownBackup prefs.
  • Added a logging mode to help track down backup problems. To enable it set the pref bookmarkbackup.loggingEnabled to true, this will create a file named bookmarkbackup.log in your profile folder.
  • Added an icon, contributed by Thomas Bertels.
  • This extension no longer works on older versions of Firefox, you must be using Firefox 1.5 or above.
  • Added a Catalan (ca-AD) locale, contributed by Toni Hermoso Pulido.
  • Added a Hungarian (hu-HU) locale, contributed by KAMI.

0.3.3

  • Changed the passwords checkbox in the Options dialog to also backup pre-Firebird 0.7 style password files (e.g. 1234567.s) since people with old profiles may still be using that style of file.
  • Added an Italian (it-IT) locale, contributed by Giovanni Francesco Solone of eXtenZilla.it.
  • Added a Turkish (tr-TR) locale, contributed by Orçun Apaydýn.
  • Added a French (fr-FR) locale, contributed by Thomas Bertels.
  • Added a Czech (cs-CZ) locale, contributed by Petr Jirsa.
  • Added a Thai (th-TH) locale, contributed by Sampan Sittiwantana.
  • Added a Japanese (ja-JP) locale, contributed by Premier.
  • Added a Slovak (sk-SK) locale, contributed by SlovakSoft.
  • Added a Simplified Chinese (zh-CN) locale, contributed by bigbigbomb.

0.3.2

  • Fixed an issue with backing up whole folders (e.g. Cache) from the profile folder.
  • Added a Traditional Chinese (zh-TW) locale, contributed by Willy Young.

0.3.1

  • The most common settings now have a checkbox in the Options dialog to make it easier to specify the files to be backed up.
  • Each day's backups are now copied into a sub-folder of the Backups folder, this keeps the files for each day together and resolves the problem of files getting the wrong extension.
  • Added a German (de-DE) locale, contributed by Patrick Ruh.
  • Added a Spanish (es-ES) locale, contributed by Carlos of Proyecto Nave.
  • Removed the automatic install.rdf update link due to bandwidth constraints, from now on you'll have to manually check for updates.

0.3

  • Bookmark Backup can now optionally backup other files in your profile. Simply go to the Options dialog and enter a list of extra files to be backed up (separated with the | character). Code contributed by Nickolay Ponomarev (thanks Nick).

0.2.1

  • Fixed some previously unlocalisable strings.

0.2

  • The backup location can now be specified in Bookmark Backup's Options window.
  • Fixed the Linux permissions issue when creating the Backups directory.

0.1.2

  • Now supports the backup of a bookmarks file that has been moved with browser.bookmarks.file.

0.1.1

  • Bookmark backups are now stored in a sub-directory of the profile directory named Backups.

0.1

  • Initial Release.

Comments

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#361 Teakwon Sunday, 29th October 2006

I didn't see it either that there's a new version, I'm still on 0.3.3. FF2.0 didn't tell me anything about a new one. Only now that I visited your site and read the comment above me, I realized there's a new one.

That's really bad if you want us to use your extension...

#362 Pike Sunday, 29th October 2006

@Teakwon

I couldn't care less one way or the other whether you use my extension. If you want to use it feel free but I don't owe you anything.

#363 Tony E Sunday, 29th October 2006

Thanks for this extension. I especially like that it is so easy to create additional backup groups. This is very useful for me as I use Minefield, with changes/new features often resulting in new files in the profile.

#364 Andrew Tuesday, 31st October 2006

Sorry, I didnt mean to offend or upset you. I use it personally but also install it on all of my customers computers (pc consultant) to make backup easier in the event of a disaster. Thanks for your time on this.

Andrew

#365 Pike Tuesday, 31st October 2006

@Andrew

Don't worry you didn't offend me, your request was perfectly reasonable, I was (over-)reacting to Teakwon's last paragraph, not sure why it hit a nerve with me but it did.

#366 Jeff Thursday, 2nd November 2006

Thanks for this tool! I would hate it if i lost all my bookmarks. This makes backing up very handy. Cheers!

#367 dracuella Thursday, 2nd November 2006

Has anybody tried it with FF2.0? I ask because the comp I'm installing on is buggy as it is and the error I get when I try to backup doesn't look like it was caused by the bookmark backup add-on.

#368 dracuella Thursday, 2nd November 2006

Sorry sorry sorry, my bad, my humblest appologies.. I just saw in the release history that FF2.0 support was added. Just ignore my post, curse a bit over my slackness and watch me as I reformat the bloody machine and start over ;D

#369 minkie Thursday, 2nd November 2006

Thanks very much for this extension, I am so glad it has been updated for Firefox 2.0. Why is this not listed on the offical extensions pages for Firefox? Of all the garbage addons out there, this to me is the most useful.

#370 minkie Thursday, 2nd November 2006

my last post didn't sound right, lol. I meant that there are too many crap addons that are on the official extension pages, and this one is not listed (at least last time I looked it wasn't?) and this is NOT crap. Hope that makes more sense??

#371 K2 Friday, 3rd November 2006

I came looking for FF 2.0 support and saw that you had 4.02 listed, but when I clicked on the link to install, it re-installed 4.01.

Is there something that I'm missing or not doing right?

I love this extension and am dying to use it with 2.0 !

Thanks!

#372 K2 Friday, 3rd November 2006

Gah, it would help if I got the extension numbering right, now wouldn't it?

What I MEANT to type was 0.4.2 - sorry about that.

#373 Pike Friday, 3rd November 2006

@K2

You could try clearing your Firefox cache then try installing the extension again.

#374 virus Monday, 13th November 2006

hey, was just wondering where you stick the "signons.txt" file to restore all your passwords

#375 Pike Monday, 13th November 2006

@virus

Copy signons.txt into your profile folder (see link below), you also need to copy the key3.db file to the same place in order to restore passwords.

Finding your profile folder:
http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/profile#locate

#376 Bob I. Tuesday, 14th November 2006

Pike,
Didn't know how much I'd miss BookmarkBackup 'til I didn't have it. Great to have it back, call me a happy customer!

#377 Mickey Sunday, 10th December 2006

I believe it's better to create backup folders that are time stamped, what if on the same day files get corrupted but have overwritten the good ones. Then you have to go to the day before, and re-work on that day. FEBE extension does that already.

#378 greenknight Tuesday, 12th December 2006

I don't know about other OSes, but Windows gives them time stamps automatically. Just check the properties of the day's backup folder.

#379 greenknight Tuesday, 12th December 2006

Of course, BB was designed for Windows systems, so if it works at all on another OS it's a happy accident.

#380 Mickey Tuesday, 12th December 2006

I think they are, But what I meant was to create a folder named "Bookmark Backup 06-11-26 @ 21.34" for example for each instance. Just to keep all back up file seperate.

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