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Syncing Edge Stable <-> Edge Insider: Profile syncing, import/export, or nada?

Bronze Contributor

We're a short 26 days until the Chromium-based Edge Stable build launches, so I thought I'd ask. Does the Edge Insider team have any plans for Edge Insider testers to sync profiles with the stable Edge build?

 

The three options I see:

 

  1.  Profiles will sync browser data (Settings, History, Extensions, etc.) between Edge Stable and Edge Insider channels (even as they all live on different Chromium versions)
  2. A manual export/import system
  3. No Profile syncing / migration between Edge Stable and Edge Insider builds

 

When the stable build launches, ideally I'd run the stable build for my daily driver & the dev build alongside for testing bugs & submitting feedback on recent changes. But, I might avoid Edge Stable if it'll mean either manually syncing the Profiles or no Profile syncing, i.e., troubleshooting bugs with two wildly different browser environments sounds like a nightmare.

 

I'm sure Insider <-> Stable syncing has been discussed internally & we'll hear soon enough after the holidays, but perhaps we can start the conversation here, too.

8 Replies

You can already test it, just download the Edge Release candidate (Beta), it's been feature locked for a long time and nothing major is going to happen to it before it's marked as stable.

https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/enterprise

 

though remember that favorite syncing is not working in Dev and Canary channels and there is a high chance that they will not be fixed until next year.

 

@HotCakeX We’ve turned on favorites sync in the Canary channel and are slowly rolling it out to Dev users. :)

 

Fawkes (they/them)
Project & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

@HotCakeX  "You can already test it, just download the Edge Release candidate (Beta), it's been feature locked for a long time and nothing major is going to happen to it before it's marked as stable."

 

I don't know it counts it as "major" or not, but Microsoft needs to get sync working in the Beta before release. 

 

I inadvertently tested Favorites sync today while preparing the EdgeChromium current Beta for release of the Stable release in January, and there were significant failures in sync between my three computers running the current Beta, which persisted for 5-6 hours after I changed the Favorites around.  I finally gave up on sync and manually synced the three computers.  That won't be acceptable in the release version.

 

As an FYI (and to eliminate the question of cross-build corruption), I am running only the current Beta on the three computers at this point, and have been for about a month.  I am not running either Dev or Canary builds on those computers.

 

I've reported the issue through Feedback, as I always do.

 

Microsoft has to get sync working before rollout/release of the Stable version, unless it wants to be a laughingstock come January.

Yeah I'm aware of the sync problems but I think they need to be solved server-side and even if there is something that needs to be pushed to the users, it can be done by a quick update.
best response confirmed by ikjadoon (Bronze Contributor)
Solution

@tomscharbach Thank you for the thorough testing and feedback. We’ve turned on favorites sync in the Canary channel as we continue to work enabling it across all channels. Please know this continues to be a top priority for us and something that we are particularly mindful of with the upcoming January release.

 

@ikjadoon Here's a note from one of our devs "Yes, all channels that sign in with the same account will sync with each other, as that's currently the only supported way to move data across channels." Hopefully that helps!

 

Fawkes (they/them)
Project & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

 

 

Thank you everyone for the helpful replies.

Thank you, @Deleted , for confirming that they will sync! It's what I think most of us expected / hoped for, so I'm very thankful that our profiles won't be silo'd off. I'd been a little unsure with respect to ongoing syncing polishing whether stable <-> Insider would be a prioritized feature or perhaps disabled for some time until single-version (same channel, different machines) were already "production ready".

Glad to hear we can expect all the channels to be on the same page here! I'm definitely more interested in running both stable & Insider builds then!
Well of course all insider channels and stable channel are compatible and sync with each other. that's what happens with all other browsers. Firefox, Google chrome etc.
the main thing is, it's better not to do is because Canary and Dev might be going through some tests on the sync engine and that corrupt the favorites on the stable version of Edge when they are synced. corrupted favorites, duplicates, deleted ones and so on
1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by ikjadoon (Bronze Contributor)
Solution

@tomscharbach Thank you for the thorough testing and feedback. We’ve turned on favorites sync in the Canary channel as we continue to work enabling it across all channels. Please know this continues to be a top priority for us and something that we are particularly mindful of with the upcoming January release.

 

@ikjadoon Here's a note from one of our devs "Yes, all channels that sign in with the same account will sync with each other, as that's currently the only supported way to move data across channels." Hopefully that helps!

 

Fawkes (they/them)
Project & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

 

 

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