Forum Discussion
*Updated 9/3* Syncing in Microsoft Edge Preview Channels
Syncing your browser data in Microsoft Edge Preview builds
We heard your feedback and are committed to making sync a more reliable feature across devices. We’ve rebuilt our sync experience from the ground up and we’re making extra effort to ensure that sync meets your expectations. Our goal for sync is to ensure that you have a consistent browsing experience when you choose to roam your favorites, passwords, history, and other data across your devices.
*Updated 9/3* What is the current state of sync and what is the road ahead?
- You can now sync Favorites, Settings (preference), Passwords & Form-fill data across Windows devices, and across Microsoft Edge on Android and iOS (instructions below).
- Sync is enabled for both Microsoft accounts (MSA) as well as work or school accounts (AAD).
- Note that AAD sync is only available for AAD premium accounts (SKUs which include Azure Information Protection) and is not yet rolled out for macOS.
- We are working on pending attributes and will be enabling them soon (history, extensions & open tabs)
- As we are building a new system, Edge builds are not expected to sync with earlier versions of Microsoft Edge. You can import your existing favorites from earlier versions of Microsoft Edge.
Enabling sync on PC
When you sign in with your Microsoft account on Microsoft Edge Insider Channels, you’ll get a dialogue asking for consent to enable sync. Once you give the consent, your favorites should start syncing. Note that you can customize the sync behavior from the sync settings page.
PC Sync Settings
Note that some attributes might be disabled on this page. They will be enabled on this page as we enable sync for them.
Enabling sync on Android
Our Microsoft Edge app on Android can now sync with the Microsoft Edge Insider Channels. But first, you’ll need to upgrade to the latest version on Google play.
To sync with Microsoft Insider Channels, sign in with your Microsoft Account, ensure that it is selected as your active account, go to Settings > Account and select your Microsoft account, then select Microsoft Edge Insider Channels > Switch.
After you switch to Microsoft Edge Insider Channels, you will be asked how you want to handle your existing favorites. You can choose to import and sync your existing favorites with Microsoft Edge Insider Channels. If you choose no, your existing favorites will be deleted before sync is enabled.
If you choose to import favorites, when you visit Favorites for the first time, you’ll see all your current favorites and they’ll start syncing with your Microsoft Edge Insider Channels on your PC.
Enabling sync on iOS
We are happy to announce that we have expanded our sync support to iOS. To begin syncing your favorites between you iOS devices and your other Microsoft Edge Insider devices, you must first update Microsoft Edge for iOS to the latest version on iTunes. To sync with the Insider Channels you can follow similar steps as those listed above in the Sync with Android section.
First you will need to sign in with your Microsoft Account, ensure that it is selected as your active account, go to Settings > Account and select your Microsoft account, then select Microsoft Edge Insider Channels > Switch.
After you switch to Microsoft Edge Insider Channels, you will be asked how you want to handle your existing favorites. You can choose to import and sync your existing favorites with Microsoft Edge Insider Channels. If you choose no, your existing favorites will be deleted before sync is enabled.
Once you have completed these steps you will see all of your imported favorites in your favorites list.
What do you think?
We are excited about sync in Microsoft Edge Insider Channels and are very optimistic that we are building it right. However, we want to be sure that sync works across your workflows and browsing scenarios. Please give it a try and let us know how it worked for you. If you run into any issues, use the in-app feedback button to submit the details. If you have other feedback for us about sync, please leave a comment below.
Thank you for trying the new Microsoft Edge.
Hi All,
We have rolled out a fix to the problem where clients were reporting error on sync. We expect an app restart should get the client back into a functional state for sync now. We so much appreciate your patience and willingness to help all this while. Apologies that it took us time to get this fix across to you. If you still see any errors, please submit using in-app feedback button (and drop me a private message so that we jump on it faster). Sincere thanks for working with us on building a better product.
Ankur
CC. @Mike_BNL , @DiggsMcGee , @bassoprofundo , @indospot , @Stephen Berard , @billbyrnes
279 Replies
Elliot Kirk How many of the Settings options are synced across different devices and versions (Dev., Beta, Canary). For example, Site Permissions are part of the Settings page. Are they supposed to be synced as well?
Hi NicolSD, I apologize, I was out of the office on Friday, and missed this thread on Thursday. I will try to find out which settings are synced, which are planned to be synced, and which are not. Thanks - Elliot
Elliot Kirk Thanks.
I have been running Canary for awhile. I have everything set the way I want in regards to Settings and Extensions. I just installed the beta and waited about 15 minutes and still see that the settings and extensions have not synced to the beta. My Favorites did sync correctly.
Is this supposed to work?
Thanks,
Bill
Deleted Thanks for trying our beta channel. We have recently updated this article (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Articles/Updated-9-3-Syncing-in-Microsoft-Edge-Preview-Channels/m-p/510159) to reflect the latest status of sync. As called out in the article, Extension sync is not yet enabled. Your settings are expected to sync. Which settings were you expecting to sync from Canary to Beta channel?
Elliot Kirk I'm signed-in with a MSA on an AD-joined PC (Windows 10 1903). Sync settings are shown as enabled, however, nothing (at least not Favorites and passwords) is synced. I installed Edge Beta on another PC (also Windows 10 1903) that is not AD nor AAD-joined, and it syncs with my MSA.
If syncing with MSA is in fact disabled on an AD-joined PC, as the current Edge (which I think is a very annoying thing by itself, but that's a different topic), then it should shown as such.
Hi jimliu, you are probably best served by either asking for help from our support agents: https://microsoftedgesupport.microsoft.com/hc/, or by using the send-a-smile feedback up at the top of the browser user interface. The send-a-smile will also send up a small amount of telemetry information that may help us understand what is going on with your account's ability to sync. Thanks - Elliot
Elliot Kirk I did hit the smiley and submit feedback at the time along with my email, diagnostic data and a screenshot - this was about a week ago and I haven't heard anything in reply.
- And the device is also AD-joined? MSA sync works very well on my personal PC. But it doesn't work on my work PC. I've installed Edge Beta for about two days and restarted Windows once.
Hi, @ got the new Windows 10 Edge Preview releaseearlier this week which seems to have enabled sync on my work device, but my home device (which is connected to my own domain) reports that "your organisation has turned off sync". How can I find the setting to enable this?
My Edge Insider Favorites are scrambled with my Android Edge (beta). Seems to have happened about a month ago and has not been corrected in recent builds.
Bottom line: Can you send instructions with sequence of steps to fix it and/or start over?
Should I disconnect sync? On which device?
Delete the favorites? And start over? On which device?
See what I mean?
I don't mind doing some work to fix it, but I don't want to do something wrong and erase all of my (carefully crafted) favorites web pages.
I have a Moto G7 Plus and and Surface Go on Windows 10 Insider Slow.- See my old posts. Syncing settings or/and browsers was always to difficult for Microsoft since Windows versions 1 3 7 XP, roaming profiles etc. Simply: this will never fully work, there will be always duplicated or non
working favourites, passwords, history, addresses, cards etc. properly synced like chrome. Shame but this is true. Programmers adding a lot of useless functions. Similar to other 'metro' apps. Remember this post and come back in 2 years time. This prove I was right.
Sync is still not working for me.
PC HOME: Version 77.0.223.0 (Official build) dev(64-bit)
PC WORK: Version 77.0.223.0 (Official build) dev(64-bit)
PC home has setting options set to enabled but all other options are greyed out - settings" and "favourites" is not possible.
Syncing on my work PC is working, but it is still far from usable - I lost so many favourites and it's happening for few months now.
I've tried reset all options, no extensions enabled, cleared Edges %APPDATA%, uninstall Edge, nothing is working.
Anyone have info why is this happening just for few people?
thanks
Kailo_ sorry to hear that you ran into issues with sync. Two requests
- Can you please submit an in-app feedback from the device where sync toggles are still disabled? Please PM me your MSA email address so that I can locate the feedback that you submit.
- Do you recall the actions that you took before you noticed that favorites got deleted ? That might help us narrow it down.
Again, thanks for your patience and help in making Edge better.
Elliot Kirk Really looking forward to password and address etc. sync.
It would be really nice if this data was stored encrypted in OneDrive so we knew that we had control over it.Elliot Kirk I make heavy use of Profiles in Chrome and now in Edge Insider but I'm seeing inconsistency in syncing. Right now, I can sync favorites for the Windows account I'm logged into my PC with but the option to sync favorites is disabled for the new Windows Live account I just created. In Chrome this works very well: multiple profiles synced with multiple Google accounts allowing me to switch from profile to profile on multiple PCs. I'd love to get this to work on Edge Insider.
Elliot Kirk question: why is syncing with a work/school account different than syncing with a personal account?
dstaley It is not different from user perspective but internally there are different way data needs to be handled and stored between MSA and work accounts. There are also different encryption requirements that we need to meet for enterprise users. Having said that, we are working on enabling sync for work/school accounts.
Elliot Kirk Any known bugs with Sync on Dev 77.0.197.1, error "Sync isn't available right now. Check your settings and try again". Settings claims, "To resume sync, sign out and then sign in again."
I've signed out and back in 5x: Sync works for ~5 minutes and then the same "Error" again. Restarting the PC did not fix it, either. I've reported this bug via the Smiley, FWIW.
Anyone else having this issue lately? I've been signing in/out for a week now, haha!
Version 77.0.197.1 (Official build) dev (64-bit)ikjadoon thanks for reporting the problem. Can you send me a private message with a screenshot of your edge://sync-internals ? Can you also submit a feedback using the in-app feedback button and share your Microsoft account email with me so that I can locate your feedback? Thanks for your patience on this.
akhator My apologies for the delay: the bug actually disappeared a day before the 77.0.211.2 update. I posted about it in this separate thread, but I forgot to follow up here:
I did submit a few Smiley reports on 77.0.197.1, but suddenly, the issue fixed itself.
I've sent you a DM, just in case in shows anything from the previous issues, but, if not, fingers crossed it's fixed! If it happens again, I'll make sure to ping back.
ikjadoon No problem here. Sync'd just fine on same version.
LarryE1946 Thank you for checking. My other system, on the same build, syncs like a charm.
If the next dev build doesn't do anything for this system, perhaps I'll reinstall.
