Back up firefox bookmarks as shortcut files?

July 24, 2008 6:55 PM

Is there a way to back up Firefox bookmarks as a regular "folder" of shortcut (url) files? I know this is possible in IE - it stores the favorites as shortcut files (or at least it used to, I haven't used it in ages), so it was a simple copy and paste job. In Firefox, the only thing I can figure out how to do is export an HTML file with links to all my bookmarks. This is annoying and useless to me.
posted by TSGlenn to technology (5 comments total)

Oh yeah, I'm using Firefox 3.
posted by TSGlenn at 6:55 PM on July 24

Firefox doesn't store them as a folder of files, but instead as a single file of links. Search your hard drive for bookmark.htm - it is probably in "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\profile\" or something like that, but for some reason I can't find mine right this moment (probably because I'm stone-tired).

Opening this document gives you a list of all your links, organized into folders. Obviously, clicking on any of the enclosed links gives you the link.

While this isn't apples-to-apples the same method as IE uses, in the long run it's easier to manage (only one file to back up!), and in fact FF is pretty good about creating backups of it anyway.

HTH.
posted by IAmBroom at 7:19 PM on July 24

OK, I'm SO tired that I didn't read the part about you knew all this already. Ignore my last post.
posted by IAmBroom at 7:20 PM on July 24

OK, I just tried this out, and it works like a charm. I hope this is what you're looking for, that I've understood you correctly.

Simply export your favorites using Firefox to an easy place like your desktop. Then open up IE7 and import that file. Your Documents & Settings 'Favorites' folder will update with the FF bookmarks. Now, as long as you have FF set as your default browser, those shortcuts should open up in FF tabs.

This Mozilla page details the process.
posted by carsonb at 8:05 PM on July 24 [1 favorite]

You could also try the add-on Foxmarks which does this automagically.
posted by ptm at 1:14 AM on July 25