Firefox Bookmarks Disappeared? How to Get Them Back

Firefox keeps automatic daily backups of your bookmarks in a folder called bookmarkbackups. In many cases, even if your bookmarks appear to be gone, Firefox already has a recent copy you can restore from. Before you try anything, avoid actions that could overwrite those backups.

Important: Do not uninstall or reinstall Firefox while troubleshooting. The backup files live inside your Firefox profile folder, and uninstalling can delete them.

Check 1: Are you in the right Firefox profile?

Firefox supports multiple profiles, and each one has its own bookmarks. If Firefox opened with a different profile, your bookmarks are not gone. They are in the other profile.

1. Type about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter.
2. Look at the list of profiles. Check which one is marked as "Default Profile" and which one is currently running.
3. If your usual profile is not the one running, click Launch profile in new browser next to the correct one.

If you only see one profile and it is the one running, move to the next check.

Check 2: Is Firefox Sync working?

If your bookmarks were synced across devices and are now missing on one device, the sync connection may have broken.

1. Click the menu button (three horizontal lines) and select Settings.
2. Click Sync in the left sidebar.
3. Verify you are signed in and that Bookmarks is checked.

If Sync was off, turn it on and wait a few minutes for bookmarks to download. If Sync was already on but bookmarks are missing, the bookmarks may have been deleted while Sync was active, which means the deletion synced to the server.

Check 3: Is the bookmarks toolbar hidden?

If your toolbar bookmarks specifically disappeared, the toolbar may just be toggled off.

1. Right-click any empty area on the Firefox toolbar (next to the address bar).
2. Check if Bookmarks Toolbar has a checkmark next to it.
3. If not, click it to turn the toolbar back on.

You can also choose Always Show, Never Show, or Only Show on New Tab from the Bookmarks Toolbar submenu.

Check 4: Restore from Firefox's automatic backups

This is where Firefox truly helps. Firefox automatically saves a backup of your bookmarks every day and keeps up to 15 recent backups. These are compressed JSON files (.jsonlz4 format) stored in your profile folder.

Restore using the Firefox Library

1. Click the menu button and select Bookmarks > Manage Bookmarks (or press Ctrl+Shift+O on Windows/Linux, Cmd+Shift+O on Mac).
2. In the Library window, click Import and Backup in the toolbar.
3. Select Restore.
4. You will see a list of dated backup files. Choose the most recent one from before the bookmarks disappeared.
5. Firefox will warn that this will replace your current bookmarks. Click OK.

This replaces your current bookmarks entirely. If you still have some bookmarks in Firefox that you want to keep, export them first (Import and Backup > Export Bookmarks to HTML) before restoring from a backup.

If no backups appear in the restore menu

The backup files may still exist on disk even if the Library does not list them. You can check manually:

1. Type about:support in the address bar and press Enter.
2. Next to Profile Folder, click Open Folder (or Show in Finder on Mac).
3. Open the bookmarkbackups folder.
4. Look for .jsonlz4 files. Each filename includes the date and the number of bookmarks it contains (for example, bookmarks-2026-05-12_150_abcdef.jsonlz4).

If the files are there, try using the Library restore method again. If the Library still does not see them, you can copy one of these files and rename it, though the restore-through-Library method is strongly preferred.

Check 5: Places.sqlite corruption

Firefox stores bookmarks (and history) in a database file called places.sqlite. If this file gets corrupted, for example after a crash, power failure, or disk error, bookmarks can disappear even though backup files are fine.

Signs of places.sqlite corruption:

• Bookmarks disappeared after a crash or forced shutdown
• Firefox is slow to start or shows errors about places.sqlite
• Some bookmarks are there but others are missing

Firefox usually detects corruption on its own and rebuilds the database from the most recent backup. If it did not rebuild automatically:

1. Close Firefox completely.
2. Go to your profile folder (use about:support > Open Folder while Firefox is still running, then close it).
3. Rename places.sqlite to places.sqlite.corrupt.
4. Also rename places.sqlite-wal and places.sqlite-shm if they exist (add .corrupt to each).
5. Restart Firefox.

Firefox will create a new places.sqlite and attempt to restore bookmarks from the most recent backup in the bookmarkbackups folder. Your history will be lost, but your bookmarks should come back.

Check 6: Did a Firefox update cause the problem?

Firefox updates occasionally reset profiles or create new ones. If your bookmarks vanished right after an update:

1. Go to about:profiles.
2. Check if a new profile was created. If you see two profiles, the older one likely has your bookmarks.
3. Set the older profile as default and restart Firefox.

If nothing worked

If the automatic backups are gone and none of the checks above recovered your bookmarks:

• Check for an HTML export. If you previously exported your bookmarks to an HTML file (even months ago), you can import that file back through Library > Import and Backup > Import Bookmarks from HTML.
• Check system backups. On Mac, Time Machine may have a copy of your Firefox profile folder. On Windows, File History or a backup tool might have captured it.

Beyond these, Firefox does not have additional recovery paths. The automatic backup system is excellent, but if those files were deleted or overwritten, the bookmarks cannot be recovered.

Firefox vs. Chrome: backup differences

Firefox's automatic bookmark backup system is one of the best among browsers. It keeps 15 rolling daily snapshots without you doing anything. Chrome, by contrast, keeps only a single Bookmarks.bak file that gets overwritten every time Chrome starts. If Chrome bookmarks disappear and you restart the browser, the backup is often already gone.

If you use Chrome as your main browser, this gap is worth knowing about. Chrome does not offer anything close to Firefox's rolling backup system. Backing up Chrome bookmarks requires either manual HTML exports or a tool like TrueBookmark, which keeps versioned backups automatically.

If your bookmarks disappeared in Chrome instead of Firefox, the Chrome bookmarks disappeared guide covers the Chrome-specific recovery steps.