DonsDeals Blog: Trying to Restore, my Lost Bookmarks in Firefox

This is an Article on, Trying to Restore my Lost Bookmarks in Firefox. Since I recently lost about 2 months of Bookmarks. Due to me Opening up an older version of Firefox on my Fedora 14 System. By running WebHTTrack Web Site Copier. I use it to backup my Web Site, once in a while. i have used it, since the days of Win98, and it's a good App. The problem is... It's hard linked to an older version of Firefox. And I can't update it on Fedora 14, (since it's EOL - End of Life, now). I figured out. That, at some point. I had deleted the Profile, for this older version of Firefox. From my "/home/don/.mozilla/firefox/" folder. I'm sure, I did this to save Space, on my HD (don't remember for sure now). I found it and some other old Profiles, on my Backup Drive. So, I restored them all. And then deleted the older Bookmark Backups, from my home directory, that I don't need any more. They are large. Adding up to about 9GB, on my System. But, I haven't tried running WebHTTrack, again yet. I want to get my Bookmarks Restored and Backed-up, first. At first, I wasn't worried. I thought. I'll just use Firefox Sync, to Restore all but few Bookmarks that hadn't been Synced yet. I can't keep Firefox Sync Running in the Background, on any of my Systems. It uses up too much CPU and Memory. I'm only running Core 2 Intel Processors and 3Gig of Ram, on these Systems. Still, I turned on Bookmarks Sync in the Laptop, first. And waited, for it to completely Sync. Then I turned on Sync on the Desktop and let it run through, till it was finished. This takes several hours, on my Slow Systems. But, to my Dismay. There were very Few Bookmarks Restored. And after looking through a few folder. Even worse, there were a bunch of empty Folders, as well... So, I've been trying to Restore all the Bookmarks, that I can. And find an easy way to Backup my Bookmarks, Daily and Automatically. In addition, to using Lucky Backup, to Backup my home Directory. Because, for some reason. My ".json" (now ".jsonlz4" file extension) Firefox Bookmarks Backup files, were Corrupted. The newest ones, that is. So, I couldn't use them to Restore my most recent Bookmarks. Also, the bad thing, about using the Firefox ".json" Backup files. Is, that you can only Replace All of your Bookmarks. You can't just Add a ".jsonJson" file, to your existing Firefox Bookmarks. Restoring a ".json" Bookmarks file. Will overwrite all of your Firefox Bookmarks. This always causes you to loos all of the Bookmarks, that you have made, since the last Backup. I don't like this. That's why I do occasional manual HTML Back-up's of my Firefox Bookmarks. I wish Firefox would make an option to make HTML Bookmark Back-up's, Automatic. Like I said. I do have some HTML Backups of my Bookmarks. That I did manually. They are HTML Bookmark Files. They work, but they are about two months old. I didn't keep up with my Manual Backups. Because, I thought I was covered. By my Daily Auto File System Backups. Done with Lucky Backup. Which normally works Great. But, for some unknown reason. My ".json" file Backups, were corrupted and would not Restore. And for some odd Reason. When import HTML Bookmarks files into Firefox. I get Disk Full Warnings. On both my Fedora 14 and 20 Systems. I have 7GB of Space on the Laptop and 35GB or so on the Desktop. I found a large amount (about 6GB) of Bookmarks Backup files, during this process, in Fedora 14. I deleted them and things were fine, after that. But, I didn't dare trying Importing all those Bookmarks again. Then, I Devised a Scheme. To, Import all of my old HTML Bookmark Backups into Chrome, in my Fedora 20 System. On my Laptop. Then, use the Import function in Firefox, to Import them all into Firefox. Because, I thought. I might get around the excessive HD Space usage issue, this way. And because, when doing an HTML Bookmarks Import of many Bookmarks. As I am doing, (my newest file, is about 135MB) and has thousands of Bookmarks. This causes Firefox to be Unusable, during the whole process. So, I have to get on another Machine, to do my Web Surfing, for several hours... And I really only like working on my Desktop. I mostly, just use the Laptop, to watch Web Videos, on my TV... So, my Scheme, went ok for the first 135MB HTML Bookmarks file Import. But, I kept on trying to import more. I wanted to make sure, that I didn't miss any important Bookmarks. Yes, I use them allot and every day. When Posting on my Blog. If you have read any of my other Posts. You, can see what I mean... But, after a few more Imports, that take 30 minutes to a couple of hours. And you just havekeep checking your Bookmarks Folder to see if the Import is working and or done. There's now "Import Done" message or anything like that, in Chrome. Or Firefox, either, if I remember, right. After, a while. I tried to check my Bookmark Imports in Chrome. And Chrome Locked up. And I had to Force Close, it. This kept happening. And now, Chrome, Won't Even Stay Running. It will open up and after a few minutes. Chrome will Crash. But, I was able to do the Import, of my Bookmarks. From within Firefox. From Chrome, into Firefox. Then, there was all of the empty folders. That, Firefox Sync, had left behind... That's what got me to searching and trying out different Bookmarks Addons for Firefox... I have been trying out a few different Bookmarks Managing Addons. There aren't any, that I can find. That will do, everything that I want. I want to remove all of the Empty Folders, in My Bookmarks. And I just want them all Sorted in Alphabetical Order. But, these Addons, all Pay attention to the Separators. That Firefox has put in the Bookmarks. And to complicate, matters, even further. When you Import HTML Bookmarks, into Firefox or Chrome. They are automatically Put into a Sub-folder. That says "Imported From...". I have never found a way to Stop this behavior. So, I've learned, to just live with it. But, it's a real Pain for me. Because, when I am looking through my Book marks or Adding New Bookmarks. I use my Keyboard, to find the Folder, that I want. By just typing the first few letters of the Name of the Folder... It's a wonderful and quick way to do this. When your Folders are all in Alphabetical Order. But, not so much. When they are Forced to be Out of Order, by these Built in Dividers. Anyway... I've been messing with all of this, for about two weeks now. I finally settled in on using. Bookmarks Checker, to get rid of the empty folders. I found out, by trial and error. That, you have to run Bookmarks Checker, over and over. In order to get rid of all of your empty Bookmarks Folders. It will finally say it is "Done". When there are no more empty folders. And I use SimpleSort Bookmarks, to Sort my Bookmarks in, as close to Alphabetical Order, as I can get, with the available Addons, I have found. neither of these Addons do exactly what I need. But, I like them better than the others I have tried. These two Addons, don't completely Slow Down my System. As some of the Other Addons Have Done. I still don't have the majority, of my Bookmarks Restored to my Desktop System. I can see, that there are more, in my Laptop, still. I have been depending on Firefox Sync to do this job. But, after several times, of letting Sync Run, till it seemed done... I may still have to try a Manual HTML Bookmarks Import, in my Fedora 14 Desktop System, again...

Don