Accessing old Firefox bookmarks from time machine after reformatting

[Joplin888]

I'm trying to access my old bookmarks from my time machine backup after I reformatted. I went to Users->Name->Library->Application Support->Firefox->Profiles->gobbledygook->bookmarkbackups. There are 5 files there with the extension .json. These files open to some sort of gibberish text. Also, I had a bajillion and seven bookmarks, not just five. I also tried opening Firefox and then accessing the time machine, thinking it would open the "old version" of Firefox, and I could open my bookmarks from there. It just switches back to the Finder when I open time machine. Any help will be very much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[garycurtis]

I had the same problem prompted after Flash no longer worked and I had to convert to Safari. I'm running a G-4 Tower on 10.5.8.

My memory isn't quite clear, but I think rummaging in folders (the same ones you mentioned) only turned up non-compatible formats, someone on this forum suggested I start up Firefox and Export my bookmarks. And perhaps you could use your new browser to see if it has an Bookmark Import command. It was a hassle, and the Firefox website offered no support whatsoever.

Barring that, do a search here to see my thread of about 120 days ago. Or look at my posting history under my username: garycurtis

 

[Bob Coxner]

Use free, in the cloud, bookmarks storage/sync and never have to worry about such things again. Plus you can sync your bookmarks on all the computers you use.

www.xmarks.com is the one I use

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I'm trying to access my old bookmarks from my time machine backup after I reformatted. I went to Users->Name->Library->Application Support->Firefox->Profiles->gobbledygook->bookmarkbackups. There are 5 files there with the extension .json. These files open to some sort of gibberish text. Also, I had a bajillion and seven bookmarks, not just five. I also tried opening Firefox and then accessing the time machine, thinking it would open the "old version" of Firefox, and I could open my bookmarks from there. It just switches back to the Finder when I open time machine. Any help will be very much appreciated. Thanks!

You can get at your Firefox bookmarks, but since I do not know what the previous version of Firefox was (and you may not be able to determine this anymore), you'll have to try some different things.
The simplest method:

• Download/install the latest Firefox from Mozilla (as of now that's 8.0 - assuming your computer supports it).
• Open it. If asked to import data, tell it not to import anything.
• Once that's done, go into Firefox's Bookmarks Manager.
• Tell it to load from a backup file.
• Navigate to the newest JSON file you have, and have it import that.
• Your bookmarks should be auto-converted to the new format, and accessible at this point.
• Now you can export them to HTML, and import them into any other browser of your choosing, if you wish.