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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#101 Djnx Friday, 15th April 2005

Nice extension!
Is there a way to backup your other extensions settings with this extension?

#102 Pike Saturday, 16th April 2005

@Djnx

Going to Tools->Extensions->Bookmark Backup->Options and selecting Preferences will backup both Firefox and extension prefs, it won't backup the extensions themselves though.

#103 Anis Khan Sunday, 17th April 2005

Great extention - have you considered backing up to zip file? I find this helps with regard to backup routines i.e. one file has changes not 10 or so.

Hope this makes sense.

#104 Pike Tuesday, 19th April 2005

@Anis Khan

At the moment I don't think the Mozilla API lets you zip files, I suppose I could use a C++ component or call an external program but for the moment zipping the backup is a low priority unless I get more people who want the feature.

#105 costark Thursday, 21st April 2005

Great tool! Thanks! I'm Win Me/FF 1.0.2 I Custom Steer my daily bookmarks to a My Documents folder and find that if last Thursday's backup is there the program won't over-write it with Today's Thursday back-up. Once I manually Delete last Thursday, then Today's Thursday loads the minute I exit FireFox. Should a day's backup "name" overwrite the last one? Thanks again!

#106 Pike Friday, 22nd April 2005

@costark

Does it work when the backup is in the default location?

#107 costark Saturday, 23rd April 2005

Sorry that it didn't go 8 days before I did the custom steer. It's not a big deal. I prefer the Custom site & will just Delete a day's name as needed. Thanks again for the site.

#108 Pike Saturday, 23rd April 2005

@costark

I'm pretty worried about this, if it happens to you it might have happened to others too, if there's any way you can test it (i.e. manually create fake files or change your PC's clock, etc.) then I'd be extremely grateful.

#109 costark Monday, 25th April 2005

Dafault Site OK - I copied a Friday backup (4/22 date) to the Default site and Renamed it Monday. Then reverted back to Default post site for Backups, closed FF 1.0.2 and it over-wrote the backup.html file to 4/25. What is confusing in the Custom site is that a Monday Folder will show a (ie) 4/18 date THAT DID NOT CHANGE from 4/18. The backup.html file date Does Change but you have to dbl-clk it to know that. That's what confused me. Also, couldn't figure a way to see if the "Day Name" Folder date changes in the Default post site as it changed 4/22 to 4/25 (today) when I renamed Friday to Monday for the test. Sorry for the scare!

#110 Pike Monday, 25th April 2005

@costark

No problem, thanks for the testing.

#111 krishnika Tuesday, 26th April 2005

I keep a backup copy of my Profiles folder, but this extension is great since I change my Bookmarks very frequently.
I have Preferences and User files checked in Options and I added 2 .rdf files for extensions that I saw in my Profiles folder. I don't know what these files are, but I imagine they contain settings for those extensions. Do you know if these are worth backing up? Are there any other files that you recommend? I wonder about the .ini and .dat files. Don't know what they are either, but in case of Fx getting corrupted, I'd like to have the smoothest process for getting all my settings back. thanks.

#112 Pike Tuesday, 26th April 2005

@krishnika

The extensions settings are stored in prefs.js. If you are trying to backup the actual extensions you might want to backup all the ini files, the compreg.dat, the xpti.dat, the extensions folder and the chrome folder, but I'm not sure if even backing all that up would let you restore your extensions into a new profile.

#113 jetman Friday, 29th April 2005

Just a long-time fan reporting an annoying glitch w/ BB 0.3.1 under FF 1.03 and Windows XP Pro SP1. Had a crash due to a weather-related power failure on Wed. Booted the browser today (Fri) and in trying to recover from earlier backups, I discovered BB has only been periodically backing up my files. That is, this is the first crash of *any* kind in over a month, but even though I use the machine daily and the FF configuration has been very stable (few changes), I've found some of the daily backup directories are out-of-date by weeks ! Of course, when I shutdown FF to revert to an earlier, BB saved a broken prefs.js this time !

In case this helps, here's what I use in my FF config:

BookmarkBackup 0.3.1 (upgrading today for laffs), CloneWindow 0.2.5, CreateShortcut 0.3, DownloadWith 0.0.7, IEView 0.84, SessionSaver .2 d1 * nightly 027, SortBookmarks 0.51, GoogleBar 0.9.5.05, miniT 20050216, SpiderZilla 1.06

I backup all listed files in a foreign sub-dir called D:\My Downloads\Firefox. One final factor: I routinely shutdown FF at nite (the close of business) by powering off the PC, bec SessionSaver still doesn't directly handle multiple instances of FF. This works for SS, but apparently not for BookmarkBackup.

Later. Godd luck....Jet

#114 lauren Saturday, 30th April 2005

thanks so much for this, it really saved me!

#115 craigevil Sunday, 1st May 2005

This extension saved my all the work of trying to put a new profile together. I had my first Firefox crash today on Linux.
When I tried to reopen Fx it was trashed. So I copied all the files from yesterdays backup and poof within 2 minutes Firefox was back and working. THANK YOU

#116 P Sunday, 1st May 2005

Your extension is realy nice!
But one thing I miss.
I save my bookmarks in a seperate folder and bookmarkbackup create for every day a seperate folder without a limit for the number of days.

Can you include in a future Version a Option for limit the number of Days for this backup. For examples "only backup the last 3 days".

#117 shazbot3 Sunday, 1st May 2005

Hi. I can't seem to get the Bookmark backup to install! I had it on an older version of Firefox, and I LOVED it. But no I keep getting "Firefox prevented this software from installing" Can you help? I love this plug-in, and came to rely on it heavily. But I can't get it to download on my new laptop, or my PC since re-formatting. Thank you!

#118 carl Monday, 2nd May 2005

shazbot3, right click on the link and save as, then drag and drop it into firefox

#119 Pike Tuesday, 3rd May 2005

@jetman

Bookmark Backup makes backups at browser shutdown, if you cut power to your PC while Firefox is running BB will not be activated.

I'd really advise you not to do that though since it's one of the causes of bookmark loss in the first place (it's equivalent to a crash, the only difference is there is less chance of corruption since you're not actively using the browser at the time). Have you tried using File->Exit in SessionSaver to save all open windows?

However, I do intend to change BB so it also makes regular time-based backups (since people who leave their browser open for weeks at a time also suffer from this limitation).

@lauren & craigevil

I'm glad BB helped you out.

@P

I don't plan to add that feature (unless you can give me a really good reason why the option to limit backups to 3 days rather than 7 days is a good idea).

#120 mom2larry Tuesday, 3rd May 2005

I just lost all of my bookmarks, did a search and found your site. I installed your extension, but how do I use it?

Also, is there a way to get my bookmarks back? I see a file with bookmarks from 11/2004, but not with all the stuff from this semester. Thanks for helping!

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