Backing up Bookmarks in FF

[Loose rivets]

Every time I do this and plonk them onto a new computer for example, I seem to double the list. Due to my bizarre life I now have a list about three metres long.

I value some of them in the list, but most of my daily calls to this are onto the Bookmarks toolbar which is an invaluable piece of kit given it allows folders within folders.

Even if I bite the bullet and sort the long list the hard way, how do I stop it misbehaving like this in the future?

NB, I put a 'Bookmarks' folder on said toolbar for odds and ends and that's perfectly manageable, it's the one that's part of FF that seems to be growing exponentially. i.e. I can see no way to back up and restore just one part of the Bookmarks system which is all I need.

W7 32bit Home

[mixture]

Off the top of my head, Firefox exports bookmarks as a JSON array, thus you could mess around with that if you only wanted a certain folder.

UPDATE: Quick example, I created a folder called "Stuff" and added a Microsoft bookmark, I exported the Bookmark JSON and it was quite clear that a JSON element was created called "Stuff" and within that, a JSON array called "children" which contained my one and only bookmark in that folder :

{"id":28,"guid":"xSQQQQQQQ”,”title":"Stuff","index":3,"dateAdded":000000000,"lastModified": 000000000,"type":"text/x-moz-place-container","children":[{"id":29,"guid":"aDGGGGGGG”,”title":"Microsoft","index":0,"dateAdded": 000000000,"lastModified": 000000000,"type":"text/x-moz-place","uri":"http://ww.microsoft.com/"}]}

[Loose rivets]

Thanks for the info, mixture.

I'd only just become aware of JSON extensions. That seems to be a lot simpler. I don' t know why, but I'd always used HTML which seemed to be working well - until I realized the list was out of control; the imaginary ribbon going past the bottom of the screen and up the road a mile.

I'll give the logical way a try. Somewhat out of character for me. :uhoh:

[Booglebox]

LR, I highly recommend Firefox Sync (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-set-up-firefox-sync).

[Keef]

As he says.

I have a backup utility on this PC (it's been there for yonks, and I've forgotten the name if I ever knew it). It backs up my bookmarks, stored passwords, and stuff. It "just works". I think it may even be a native Firefox feature, because it appears on the Tools - Options - Sync tab.

There's a separate app called Xmarks that syncs the bookmarks with my laptop. That would do more, I think, but I don't like releasing passwords to the outside world (not even the "unimportant" ones).

On the PC there's a folder under Firefox called "bookmarkbackups" with filenames like bookmarks-2015-01-15_524_-YcZCRCoiA9XzuJb2LOJgQ==.jsonlz4 which I think is where the backup facility puts them on a daily basis.

That gets backed up to a sequence of external hard drives every week, so if the PC has a major hiccup I can go back a couple of months or so. I've not needed to in years, but that's the joy of backups.

I've not "lost" a bookmark (or not noticed, anyway) in a long time.

There was for a time a bright red thing called "LastPass" that did all the above in a more snazzy way, but it started pestering me to do things I didn't want to do, so I removed it. I think it was an upmarket Xmarks.

[Loose rivets]

I've desired for a long time, but not dared try, a full synchronization of all my kit. I'll look at it anew, but as keef says, passwords I probably would not include - definitely the banking ones.

Thanks Boogle, I'll look more carefully at the procedure when I'm not outside a bottle of Chateauneuf de plonk. :p

[Booglebox]

Personally LR, I find my computing skills increase exponentially after a splash of red (or 5) :}
FF Sync is totally OK because you hold the encryption keys yourself on your machine. You have to put a key into a new PC in order to sync it / access anything. Online banking passwords are safe.
However you can choose what you do and do not want to sync, so you can enable it without syncing passwords if you like.