Lost Bookmarks in Firefox?

Mozilla-based browsers like Firefox and Mozilla Suite store your bookmarks in the file "bookmarks.html" located in the profile folder. There is a backup file called "bookmarks.bak", and Firefox versions 1.5 and higher also create up to five daily backups called "bookmarks-(date).html".

You can open and read these files with your browser. To locate the files you can use your operating system’s file and folder search feature, or you can open the profile folder and look through its contents. To find all bookmarks files anywhere on your computer, search for bookmarks* (be sure to include the asterisk, with no space). Windows 2000/XP users will need to enable viewing of hidden files and folders. For searching in Windows XP, you must select the "Search hidden files and folders" option in the Search box.

If changes to the toolbar reset themselves after you close Firefox and start it up again, you probably have a corrupt "localstore.rdf" file in the profile folder. You can fix this problem (and possibly others such as missing search engines, disappearing bookmarks or the "Add Bookmark" dialog not working) by using either one of these solutions:

Firefox 1.5 or later

Exit Firefox completely and then start it in safe mode. A window called Firefox Safe Mode with some troubleshooting options will appear. Select the option "Reset toolbars and controls" and choose "Make Changes and Restart".

All Firefox versions

Exit Firefox completely and then open the profile folder and delete the file "localstore.rdf". Make sure to delete the "localstore.rdf" file in the profile folder, not any in other locations such as under "Program Files".