Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!

Subject: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 02:48 PM

Well, I did a dumb thing today that will probably cost me a lot of time. I accidentally deleted most of my bookmarks.

I use Google Chrome as my usual browser. (Maybe the same thing could have happened with any browser.) I have the bookmarks toolbar permanently displayed. A dozen or so of my most frequently used bookmarks are spread out across the toolbar. On the far left of my toolbar was a folder. Inside that folder were about 20 sub-folders. Inside those folders were all my other bookmarks—hundreds of them.

What I meant to do was click on the main folder to open it. What I think I accidentally did instead was to drag and drop the folder somewhere off the toolbar. It may have had something to do with my cat walking across my lap at the time, attracted by the smell of the bowl of cereal I was holding in my left hand while I operated the mouse with my right hand. Anyway, whatever clumsy thing I did made that main folder disappear. I don't know where it went. It's not on my desktop. I suspect it didn't go anywhere; it just got deleted. I doubt that there's any way to get it back. I don't see an "undo" button anywhere.

I probably do have backups of some of my bookmarks on another browser. But before I try the export/import thing, I thought I'd ask for suggestions. Got any?

By the way, I'm away from home right now, using my mother-in-law's computer, so whatever you suggest, I won't be able to try it for real until Saturday. I suppose I can experiment with this computer, though. I have Chrome installed here, too.

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: Tootler
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 04:05 PM

Chrome allows you to sync your data with a Google account, if you have one. I have just tried it and it works.

Unfortunately, I had reorganised my bookmarks changing the location of several of them to put ones I use commonly on the bookmarks toolbar and it has reverted it to the previous version.

I usually back up my settings from my home directory (I use Linux) to a separate hdd from time to time as well.

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 06:02 PM

In Windows, any normal "delete" places the deleted items in a folder called "Recycle Bin." You can override the save to Recycle by holding down the shift key while you hit the delete, but otherwise if they were in fact deleted they should be there and should be recoverable.

I believe Macs do the same, although I can't suggest keystrokes ...

Since you had both hands full it's unlikely you hit an override key while the disappearance was happening, so you should find recent deletions.

In Windows Explorer, click on the System Drive (usually C:\) and look for a "Recycle Bin" folder.

Windows uses a generic "shortcuts" folder called "Favorites" that should be a direct subfolder under each Username. This is a Windows function that shouldn't depend on what browser you use, but I can't assure that Chrome won't put them somewhere else. You might have just lost the "connection" to where the Favorites are kept, or the folder might have been moved.

Most "Drag n Drop" operations Move the dragged object to the new location, but it's difficult to "delete" something - unless the target you drag it to is the Recycle Bin. The missing shortcuts should be somewhere else on your computer.

I've found the Search function in Windows since Vista completely useless, but if you can get the filename of any one of your shortcuts (maybe by re-adding it in you browser) from C:\> in a command prompt:

DIR filename /s

should find the one, and will tell you where the rest of the of them are likely to be.

On most Windows toolbars, you can drag things onto the toolbar to have an icon there, and dragging them off the toolbar merely removes the icon from the toolbar. IT DOESN"T DELETE the shortcut, which should still be replicated in what you get if you use the menu to go to them. If you can use the menu (off the toolbar) to find the favorites, it may be just a matter of dragging the ones you want back onto the toolbar.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 06:31 PM

I'd probably doing myself a favour if I accidentally deleted mine. There's so much junk there...

In any case, I don't use them for the sites I use most frequently. I've the most common as pinned tabs on chrome. I get to the next most frequently used ones simply by typing a couple of letters in the address bar and letting the browser complete the url (eg. typing mu is enough to get firefox to bring up http://www.mudcat.org here).

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 09:34 PM

OK, I've done some experimenting. When I delete a bookmark from Internet Explorer, the bookmark appears in the Recycle Bin, and I can restore it from there.

When I delete a bookmark from Chrome, Firefox, or Safari, it does NOT appear in the Recycle Bin.

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 08:39 AM

Can you find where your other browsers save their bookmarks, so that you can look at whether the bookmarks have been deleted - or if only the links to them (on the browser toolbar) went away?

Jon's comment suggests that Chrome has an autocomplete function that probably looks at bookmarks first when he starts typing. (Otherwise just typing mu... would more likely take him to a museum somewhere(?)) If that function works independent of whether the bookmarks toolbar is displayed, it implies that the actual bookmarks - and their URLs - are in a primary storage space elsewhere on the drive.

The expectation would be that turning off display of the bookmarks toolbar shouldn't delete the bookmarks that are on it, and that moving bookmarks on/off the toolbar shouldn't change the bookmarks actually present. The normal use of a toolbar of that kind is so that you can select the few items you expect to use frequently without displaying everything you have (although Chrome/Firefox/Safari designers may not be all that normal ;-).

Do the other browsers give you an alternate way of displaying bookmarks, such as a menu or other tool?

In IE, if you select File|Import and Export and Export Bookmarks, it will put a complete listing of all your bookmarks in one file (as an html "page."). If the other browsers have a similar export function, the exported file should tell you whether the bookmarks still exist, even if they no longer are displayed on the toolbar.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: wilbyhillbilly
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 09:09 AM

Jim, don't know if this helps, on my Chrome I have "other bookmarks" folder on the bookmark toolbar (although mine is on the righthand side), if I right click that it gives the option of Bookmark Manager, after left clicking that it comes up with bookmark manager "organise", click that and it allows Import/Export to html file.

I wonder if you have accidently exported them to a file somewhere, if so you should be able to import them again.

Not that I know anything, but it's just a thought!

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: Newport Boy
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 09:52 AM

In Firefox (I'm using 8.0 on Linux and the Win version may be slightly different) from the menu:
History>Show All History (keystroke Ctrl-Shift-H) gives a new window with an Import & Backup item. The options for Bookmarks include Backup and to HTML and Restore.

Another approach - Firefox keeps everything in a profile folder, with a name like aj86k0dg.default. In Linux it's located in your home/.mozilla/.firefox folder - I don't know where Windows hides it. The profile folder contains a bookmarkbackups folder with a daily record of your bookmarks.

I don't know how much this grows - I have 10 days history there, which corresponds to my fresh installation of this version. I also don't know how to convert the information to something usable, but it must be possible.

Phil

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: GUEST,saulgoldie
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 10:47 AM

Interesting that this should come up. My cousin is jut telling me about backing up cell phone contacts. How would I do that? I have a Droid. Thx.

Saul

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: GUEST,Hookey Wole
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 12:53 PM

Sort of related:

After I first installed Chrome I searched all the usual system folders for 'Temp Internet'
to recover some images or mp3s like I was used to doing with IE.;


but if I remember correctly - I could only find a folder with some kind of unknown Chrome proprietary format backup files.
No way that I could find for searching for and recovering individual media files.. ???

Of course my memory of this may be wrong...???

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: GUEST,Hookey Wole
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 01:28 PM

Looks like my memory is in better shape than I give credit..


"for win7 users try this:
C:\Users\[User name]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache"



http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=3026728440f0ef63&hl=en


but seems there's still no quick easy way of 'translating' Chrome backup data files
to normal file extensions..

oh well.. never mind, Chrome is still my favoured browser.

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 02:10 PM

A Chrome Website

Hi

I would like backup my Chrome bookmarks to a CD but don't know where the folders are located. Any ideas?

Thanks

Best answer - Blair (Googler) (Google Employee) Inside the "...\Chrome\User Data\Default\" directory are two files. "Bookmarks", and "Bookmarks.bak". One is for your current bookmarks, and the other one (with the .bak extension) signifies that it is a bookmarks backup, if anything goes wrong. Bookmarks.bak gets overwritten every time you close Chrome.

Bookmarks in Chrome exist as a virtual filesystem. Meaning, that all your bookmarks are really just stored in one file, but appear as an actual filesystem inside Chrome.
You only have to copy that file, and back it up somewhere. And if you want to recovery your bookmarks, simply copy/paste the "Bookmarks" file you backed-up, back in to the directory you took it from.

Chrome must be closed prior to doing this.

Hope this helps.

(and btw, try opening the "Bookmarks" file with a text editor like Notepad =])

[end quote]

The C:\Users\username\Local mentioned above is a WINDOWS TEMP FILE location that can't be relied on for much of anything other than its intended function as a swap file bin. Files land there when Windows loads them into RAM so that the OS can page through them as needed while they're in use, but stuff swaps in and out in inexplicable ways so what's there at any given time is mostly useless except directly by the OS.

In Windows, the ...\Chrome\User Data\Default\ folder location is likely to be in C:\Program Files\Chrome\... although most programs can be "custom installed" to other places.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: judyac
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 02:15 PM

I use Windows 7 and IE 9. If I were to lose my bookmarks I could restore them from one of the previous versions that Windows creates whever it makes a Restore Point.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Recover-lost-or-deleted-files

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 11:35 PM

I have bookmarks all over the place. In the browsers, imported from one another, and in my Google Toolbar. The toolbar bookmarks are accessible anywhere if I can get to the toolbar or http://www.google.com/intl/en/about/products/index.html the bookmarks when you click to see "more" from any Google page or program (iGoogle, Google+, Gmail, etc.).

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 05:15 AM

Jon's comment suggests that Chrome has an autocomplete function that probably looks at bookmarks first when he starts typing. (Otherwise just typing mu... would more likely take him to a museum somewhere(?))

Actually I think its (and the Firefox) autocomplete probably use browser history. I haven't got (and have no reason to need) Mudcat bookmarked anywhere.

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: GUEST,Hookey Wole
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 09:42 AM

"Google has announced plans to bring gaming features to its Chrome platform.

The search engine giant's developer advocate Paul Kinlan confirmed at this week's Develop Liverpool conference that the web browser will support gamepads, webcams and chat features.

Kinlan went on to say that Chrome will also add the communication protocol WebRTC, giving rise to speculation that the company is planning to transform the service into a cloud gaming platform similar to OnLive.......

.......Google will add the new gaming features to Chrome in the "first quarter" of 2012."


http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/news/a353005/google-chrome-to-add-gaming-features.html


oh no... does this mean that Chrome, a good efficient reliable fast browser, is going to end up as bloated and buggy
as microsoft IE !!!???

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 02:10 PM

Back up your bookmarks!
Start saving them now.
'Control 'V'' all your fav'rites.
JohnInKansas will tell you how.
If your 'housekeeping' time is too frugal.
You may loose all your links out of Google.
So, back up your bookmarks,
It's ne'er soon enow!


With apologies to Cole porter!

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: GUEST,Hookey Wole
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 02:25 PM

"Back Up Your Bookmarks in Your Old Kit-Bag, and ... etc.. etc ...."

Subject: RE: Tech: Advice: Back up your bookmarks!
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 05:57 PM

If there's anything worse than doing something stupid, it's having to explain later that it wasn't as bad as you thought. Like telling everyone you lost your wallet and later finding it on the bedroom floor right next to the spot where you normally take off your pants.

I got home a while ago, after being away since Thursday morning, and had another look at the computer on which my so-called disaster happened.

Turns out my folder full of bookmarks wasn't really gone at all. What I had actually done was to drag and drop the "missing" folder into another folder. So it was there all the time, just hidden in a place where I didn't expect to find it.

What I didn't tell you earlier (because I didn't think it was relevant) is that there was another folder on the toolbar right next to the one that went missing. Today I opened up that folder, and, lo and behold, there was the "missing" folder inside it. All I had to do was drag and drop it back to its original location.

Oh, well. To atone for my false alarm, I hope I have impressed on all of you the importance of making a backup. Here's what I should have done before Thursday (and have now done):

HOW TO BACK UP BOOKMARKS FROM GOOGLE CHROME:
1. Click the wrench.
2. Click "Bookmarks"
3. Click "Bookmark Manager". This will open a new tab.
4. Click "Organize"
5. Click "Export Bookmarks to HTML file..."
6. The standard "Save As" box will open up. The default location will be your "Documents" folder. The default file name will be "bookmarks_mm_dd_yy.html" (where mm, dd, and yy are today's date). Change these if you like. (But why change them?)
7. Click "Save".

The procedure for restoring bookmarks from backup is the same down to:
5. Click "Import Bookmarks from HTML file..."

By the way, that file you saved can be opened just like any HTML file, with Chrome or any other browser.

I'm sure other browsers have procedures for backing up bookmarks, but the resulting file may not have the same format.

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions.