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?
- Close Firefox.
- Find the Backups folder in your profile folder (or in your custom backup location, if configured).
- 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.
- 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
- Nickolay Ponomarev (Multiple file backup code)
- Thomas Bertels (Icon and French translation)
- Patrick Ruh (German translation, retired)
- Carlos of Proyecto Nave (Spanish translation)
- Willy Young (Traditional Chinese translation)
- Giovanni Francesco Solone of eXtenZilla.it (Italian translation)
- Orçun Apaydýn (Turkish translation)
- Petr Jirsa (Czech translation)
- Sampan Sittiwantana (Thai translation)
- Premier (Japanese translation)
- SlovakSoft (Slovak translation)
- bigbigbomb (Simplified Chinese translation)
- Toni Hermoso Pulido (Catalan translation)
- KAMI (Hungarian translation)
- Pedro Failla (Brazilian Portuguese translation)
- Junyeob Kim of Mozilla Update Korea (Korean translation)
- Team erweiterungen.de (German translation)
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.login 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.rdfupdate 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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I modified bookmark backup so it is directory aware for the directories in the profile directory... this way it can also get the userChrome.css and userContent.css.
Since then I may have lost the code but it was a quick hack and was extremely easy to add... so, if you'd like me to send you the code let me know.
I was wondering if you might modify the extension so that it is more geared toward profile restoration? For example, have a "backup now" button in the extension preferences for when a person is going to install fresh. There could also be checkboxes for all of the basic items a person would normally need to backup in this scenario. This is how I tend to use this extension... and if not, would you mind me releasing an extension based on your code that did support doing this?
wig_out_on_me,
I did sort of start working on something like that but haven't got too far yet, if you want to do something similar based on the BB code please be my guest.
I like your backup extension but why the only "timestamp" is the day? If you add in the options the possibility of saving bookmark with the complete date in the YYYYMMDD format(for instance "bookmark-2004-07-06.html" i will be more happy! :-) ). Bye, and sorry for my "poor" english, i'm not a native speaker.
Just lik "AC", the first respondee, you fail to adress the most basic and primal question: how does one install your extension? You have failed at that question because you cannot answer the overwhelming requirement resulting from so many systems and configurations. So, in essence, I say YOU SUCK AND SO DOES YOUR PREMISE FOR HOPING TO ASSIST OTHERS IN ENJOYING YOUR PRODUCT. LOSER.
This is one of the best extenstions around. It would be even better if you saved the bookmarks by date because sometimes just knowing the day wont tell you which is the newest backup.
Also if you make a profile backup I'll name you king of extensions and you will reign forever.
Hello
Thank you for this extension. I'm new to Mozilla (from Netscape, not IE) What are the name of the files I need to add in Options in order to get it to backup Passwords, and history. And why can't it backup profiles, are they stored in a file somewhere?
thanks for the help
and I'd like to second these suggestions from above:
There could also be checkboxes for all of the basic items a person would normally need to backup in this scenario.
Also if you make a profile backup I'll name you king of extensions and you will reign forever.
I would like to be able to use this extension to write a copy of my modified bookmarks file to my other profiles, for Firefox and Mozilla, as well as to a backup so I can keep both files sychronized.
Is this possible at this point, or might it be added?
Can you add an option to 'not' save by bookmarks.html.<day> and just save it each time to bookmarks.html?
Lance_Rules,
Passwords = signons.txt & key3.db
History = history.dat
The checkbox thing is definitely on the todo list.
rphunter42,
Unfortunately that's not possible with this extension.
z3uS,
The problem with doing what you suggest is that the first time you loaded Firefox after losing your bookmarks your backup would get corrupted as well.
Thanks. I have downloaded the extension and restarted Firefox, but you say to "find" the backup when needed. I cannot even find Bookmark Backup itself, much find its Options dialog so as to change the place where it is backed up. Is a window supposed to pop up, or something? (I am very new to Firefox, so may be missing something obvious.)
Biwa,
Go to Tools->Extensions, look in the list that appears for Bookmark Backup then right-click it and select Options. The window that appears will let you choose the backup location.
Hello,
I would like to ask you if you would be interested to exchange links between your site and mine ( www.amicutilities.com )
Looking forward to hear from you,
Alexandru Marias
Webmaster
Amic Utilities
www.amicutilities.com
@Alexandru
No thanks.
I installed this Extension, but I can't find it after I re-start FF. Looked in bookmarks, view, tools? Any help for this braindead FF user?
@Liebgott
You can find the entry in Tools->Extensions, right-clicking and selecting Options will let you choose where to backup to.
Please consider using a prefix with backed-up files (rather than suffix, which messes up the file's extension).
*.Mon is an extension already used by Steinberg WaveLab for audio Montage files. This results in a confusing icon associated with Monday backups (but not with the others). Also, suffixes mean that that you'd have to make seven custom associations to have a matching backed-up file icon for all backups, and it means that you only have the latest back up on any particular day (which may well not be the one you want to restore to).
If you make a mistake and then close the browser, the last backed up version will be a copy of the mistake. You will not have backups from earlier that day to go back to. You will have to go back to the previous day (assuming that there is a backup at all for that day).
It would be much better if files were date / time stamped and the user could specify how many copies to keep at anyone time. When maximmum number of copies is reached, the oldest is deleted to make way for the latest backup.
e.g. "2004-07-30 21.30 Bookmarks.html", "2004-07-30 22.05 Bookmarks.html"
The other good thing about the naming mathod I have used above, is that all the extensions remain consistent, so you can just click on your backups to view them (to decide which one to restore). With your existing method, each has a different extension and so can not be opened.
Everyone is determined to make this extension more complicated than it needs to be, however, it's getting to the point where I might just give in to get a quiet life :-)
For the filenames, I'll probably have a directory for each backup set so it will be like Backups\Monday\Bookmarks.html and so on. As for using date and time, I'll think about it :-)
Even a braindeed FF user made this work. Thank you Sir Pike for this extension. I have a backup too!
Hi, I'm a Newbee, so thanks for your patience!
I downloaded your extension, restarted Firefox, and see the extension listed, but see no Backups folder in my Profiles folder. A file called Bookmarks containing my current bookmarks exists in
C:\Documents and Settings\(UserName)\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\Default User\(*).slt
Profiles is the only folder in Mozilla, Default User is the only folder in Profiles, and my .slt folder is the only folder in Default User. There are no other .html files other than Bookmarks in my .slt folder.
Should there be a Firefox folder in Mozilla?
Do I need to create the Backups folder?
Do I need to create a user.js file first?
Thanks for your advice!
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You have an amazing collection of extensions, I have four or five or yours installed. One thing I'd like to see, if possible, is something in the dialogue box that gave you checkboxes for the files you'd be most likely to want to back up. I know you have a link on the home page where I can go learn about all of them, but I'm sure only a few like passwords are going to be wanted by many people so checkboxes and a couple word description of each one would be terrific. Thanks for all your work.