How to save address book, email accounts &cetera in Firefox?

[boof]

how do I preserve my address book and email accounts lists with passwords prior to removal and reinsall of ff, which has become unmanagbly corrupted [by a bad update?]

[dancytron]

how do I preserve my address book and email accounts lists with passwords prior to removal and reinsall of ff, which has become unmanagbly corrupted [by a bad update?]

No guarantees, but off the top of my head, this is what I'd try.

All your settings should be in a profile directory. I'd first flush the cache and backup your bookmarks (show all bookmarks--backup).

Then find your profile directory, which will either be a random named directory (something like kcjhoc70.default) probably under /root/.mozilla/firefox or if you are using Fred's portable, will be under the Firefox directory and called .../profile. I'd back that up.

Then, if you aren't already using Fred's version, I'd switch to that, install it and try to paste in the backed up profile directory stuff. If that doesn't work, at least you backed up the bookmarks.

[boof]

sorry, but no access to <Preferences> function or menu bar containg send and write. they've disappeared [Why?] and If I reinstall, I'll prob have recreate new passwords and addressbook. really need precise instructions.

[dancytron]

Can you find your profile directory?

That's the place to start.

[bigpup]

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/re ... fox-update

This tells you what file is what.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/re ... le-folders
The files are in the profile directory in /root/.mozilla/firefox
If you only have one profile, its folder(directory) would have "default" in the name.

[Mike Walsh]

@ boof:-

You may well end up losing data, and have to start again, but I would strongly recommend following Dan's advice, and using Fred's 'portable-Quantum'. There's a very good reason for doing this, and, once again, it's all down to Mozilla changing things without warning.

Referring to bigpup's link above, it appears that from FF 67 onwards, Mozilla have decided that every time you do a fresh install of Firefox, you must have a brand-new profile. Whether they don't like the idea of 'sharing' profiles, I don't know; I suspect this is more to do with newbies and those with not much experience installing FF, to make things 'easier' for them. Those of us who know what we're doing, it's simple enough to share a profile.....probably more so in Puppy, since we're not lumbered with quite as many 'sudos' and permission/ownership problems as mainstream distros are, and Pup's sym-link function is very easy to use.

The point being, that if you use the 'portable' version, you only have to set everything up once. After that, you can then 'share' the entire browser between as many Pups as you like, by the simple expedient of clicking on the start script inside the browser directory. All your bookmarks, extensions, settings, etc., stay exactly the same.....and you're always using the same, single profile, because it doesn't count as a new installation.

(And since my 'portable-FF' install lives in one, fixed location, it means I can use a common, custom-made MenuEntry in every Pup for that browser......the browser will always be in the same location, and I have a .desktop entry I can drag onto the desktop that will always work.)

Just a few ideas; I hope that clarifies why these 'portables' are such a good idea for us here in Puppy-land!

---------------------------------

(EDIT:- Reading further through Mozilla's documentation, it looks rather like they want to discourage the use of 'shared' profiles. They say it helps to increase stability, but, at bottom, they would prefer you to 'share' profile data by means of the 'Firefox account', which 'syncs' your data between browsers in very much the same way that Chrome always has since the beginning.

I've used Chrome's 'syncing' function for years. It duplicates & mirrors things perfectly between installs.

I tried the Firefox variant of this a couple of times when it first came out. Oh, you get all your data - eventually! - but it never puts stuff in the same place twice. So you're still hunting around to find things.

Needs more work, Mozilla. And that's why I prefer the 'portable' version of FF-Q.)


Mike.

[glene77is]

to All:
Years ago, I faced the same problem.
I placed all my personal data, and passwords, and favorite URL
into a Libre-Office (OpenOffice) file , then saved as a "html" .

(1) I entered the "/subdir/filename"
into the "Home-Page" Option in my browser.
(2) When I startup the browser,
it runs my "My_Home_Page" first.
(3) From there,
I can copy-paste as required for my next favorite URL,
and passwords, etc.

Once you try it, you see good results.
I wrote the first "My_Home_Page" by hand,
and then started adding in the Libre-Office generated code.

I could have done the whole thing from the beginning
by writing my information into Libre-Office
and letting it generate this generic page html code.

[BarryK]

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/re ... fox-update

This tells you what file is what.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/re ... le-folders
The files are in the profile directory in /root/.mozilla/firefox
If you only have one profile, its folder(directory) would have "default" in the name.

bigpup,
Thanks for that link. I compiled SeaMonkey 2.53.2, the latest, and had to delete the complete profile to get it to work.

From that link, I will see if can keep some of those profile files. Thinking, will start the new SM with a new profile, but copy over certain files from the old profile.

My report on SM 2.53.2:

https://bkhome.org/news/202005/seamonke ... roken.html

[ozsouth]

@BarryK - I just downloaded the seamonkey website 2.53.2 version, copied the seamonkey folder into /usr/lib64 (after moving the previous) & my settings were retained. That said, I can't see any benefit or useful new features.