With the advent of Firefox 3, everybody is talking about the new bookmark system. Most like it, while some don’t. But the major confusion among the new people who have started using Firefox 3 is the question, where are the Firefox 3 bookmarks stored or saved?
Where were bookmarks saved before?
In Firefox 2, the bookmarks were stored in bookmarks.html file under C: Users –> <User Name> –> AppData –> Roaming –> Mozilla –> Firefox –> Profiles –> (some random characters.default ex 2xd8htj.default) –> Bookmarks.html
Even though you find this file in Firefox 3, you may find that it doesn’t have the latest bookmarks you have added in Firefox. You may find only the imported bookmarks in that file. That’s because Firefox 3 bookmarks are not stored in the same way it was stored before. (Note: You can tweak Firefox 3 to save bookmarks in bookmarks.html also)
Where are bookmarks saved in Firefox 3 now?
It stores both the bookmarks and the history as the database with the help of SQLite. This is the reason why Firefox 3 is able to add tags to the bookmarks and the awesomebar is able to list the suggestions as per most visited links. This also enable Firefox 3 to handle these requests very fast. SQLite database bookmark system was added since Firefox 3 Alpha 5 – Mozilla Development Center.
So in the same place where you found bookmarks.html, you will find places.sqlite and this is the database which handles all the Firefox 3 bookmarks.
So what is JSON and what has to do with Bookmarks?
JSON is JavaScript Object Notation which is a data-interchange format. In the same folder where you found places.sqlite, you will find a folder called bookmarkbackups which has backups of Firefox 3 bookmarks. In case you lose your database or it gets corrupted, you can import these files through Bookmarks –> Organize Bookmarks –> Import and Backup –> Import. So this just serves as your backup and this is not where primarily the Firefox 3 bookmarks are stored.
So now how to view bookmarks in places.sqlite?
The best way is to install the SQLite Manager addon which helps to view all the 11 tables that are present in the bookmark database. This includes table for history, favicons, keywords, bookmarks root etc.
Once you install the addon, click Connect Database and browse to select places.sqlite and you can view all the bookmarks in the table moz_bookmarks. If you prefer to do it this way, you can also manually add, edit or delete bookmarks through this table.
is any tool inside firefox to remove history from places.sqlite?
@amm, are you referring how to remove browsing history? you can go to Tool -> Options -> Privacy tab -> Private Data -> Clear Now -> Check only browsing history and say Ok to remove history from places.sqlite.
Its similar to what it was in Firefox 2. See me earlier post for more details.
Nice post. Do you know is it possible to upload bookmark data to an FTP server, like Bookmark Sync plugin did it in ff 2.0?
It is unfortunate that bookmarks.html, useful for synchronization and directly readable, was replaced by a DB. One has to start Firefox and export bookmarks from places.sqlite before synchronizing with other browsers. Why that? I have no interest in awesomebar and “suggestions as per most visited links”.
The trick described above
works, but is does not allow automatic synchronization with Firefox 3: You have to import the synchronized file into places.sqlite manually each time. I will convert to Firefox 2 for now and check how synchronization-friendly is Opera.
Petr Karlovsky
How does one remove the ‘most visited’ link? I like to save my toolbar for special bookmarks and I don’t need ‘most visited.’
I much prefer the bookmarks system in Firefox 2; it is much easier and quicker to manage.
I am profoundly unhappy with this.
I just upgraded from FF2 to FF3. Upon reboot, I found that I am missing about 1/3 of my bookmarks. Essentially, all my last six weeks’ worth.
This shouldn’t have happened. It happened, so it should be easy for me to fix. It isn’t. I don’t want to configure a database just to recover bookmarks. I just want the bookmarks I had saved, displaying in the left pane, where I expect to see them. This is as unexpected and unwelcome as a russian porn virus on my hard disk drive. I refuse to consider it an improvement. This is insane.
I’m use to the “bookmarks.html” file storing my bookmarks. That is very handy because I can easily backup my bookmarks (which are valuable to my work). I was getting quite frustrated trying to figure out why my Firefox 3 “bookmarks.html” file didn’t store my bookmarks, and this post was very helpful in shedding light on the situation.
Of course, now I’m stuck without a convenient way to backup my bookmarks. I suppose I can just backup the whole “bookmarkbackups” folder, but then I’m backing up a bunch of old files I don’t care about. Annoying.
It’s crazy to have to install a SQLite Manager extension just to manage some bookmarks…
How to trash the world’s best browser?
Answer: prevent it from saving any new bookmarks
way to go mozilla!
good thing google just came out with a new browser. I’m going to check it out and I bet it even SAVES NEW BOOKMARKS.
You guys are complete losers for releasing version 3 in this condition ROFL