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Programster
Asked: 2013-05-24 05:23:16 +0800 CST

How to backup and restore Firefox bookmarks from command line?

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Is there an easy way to backup Firefox bookmarks to a file with command line. Running a find command, I managed to find this file: /.mozilla/firefox/9a5j5dbb.default/bookmarkbackups/bookmarks-2013-05-22.json which appears to have my latest data. However, I dont know if the folder under Firefox (currently 9a5j5dbb.default) will keep changing, and I'm pretty sure the date will.

Rather than a more advanced shell script to dynamically calculate the path based on today's date and looking for the only xxxxx.default folder under ~/.mozilla.

Is there a simpler/more-robust way to save/copy your current Firefox bookmarks to a specified file?

command-line

3 Answers

  1. Using sqlite:

    Firefox uses sqlite to store its data. Bookmarks are stored in ~/.mozilla/firefox/profile_name/places.sqlite. So we can use sqlite to backup and restore Firefox bookmarks.

    Hit Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal and run following command to install sqlite3:

    apt-get install sqlite3

    Now you can one following command to backup/restore Firefox bookmarks, make sure to close Firefox before running any of following commands.

    Backup:

    sqlite3 ~/.mozilla/firefox/user.profile/places.sqlite ".backup /path/to/directory"

    Restore:

    sqlite3 ~/.mozilla/firefox/user.profile/places.sqlite ".restore /path/to/backup/file"

    Change user.profile with your default profile name.

    Simple Backup:

    If you don't want to install any additional packages use following command to copy latest bookmarks backup from Firefox profile:

    cp $(find ~/.mozilla/firefox/fvy8ug06.default/bookmarkbackups | sort | tail -n1) .
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  2. Best Answer

    Well since there is only one .default in that folder you could use a wildcard like this:

    *.default

    sudo cp -fr /Path/to/Source/Folder/*.default /Path/to/Destination/Folder

    • 8

  3. In mozilla there is a option for taking the Backup of Bookmarks in JSON format.

    You can follow these steps:-

    1. open all bookmarks (shift+ctrl+o)

    2. select 'Import and Backup' option (alt+i)

    3. Select 'Backup' option

    here you can get all bookmark backup in json format.

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