Where are favorites stored?

Copper Contributor

Anyone know where they are stored? I'd like to *REPLACE* my favorites as sync has horribly messed them up. I've backed up the favorites and don't want to 'import'  them I want to replace them with my backup.  tired of cleaning them up only to have sync remangle them, want to clean them up in once, and copy that to all my other machines.

14 Replies

@jhosler2 

 

Hi there, welcome to the forum!

 

Yes unfortunately the favorites sync has been having troubles recently,

here is the safest way to import/export your favorites. using HTML file which is recognizable by all browsers.

 

Simply click on the (ellipsis) menu on the top right corner of the browser, go to favorites and then manage favorites

or press SHIFT+ CTRL + O (shortcut)

or just paste this into your browser URL:  edge://favorites/

 

and then at the bottom left corner you see these options:

 

Annotation 2019-10-06 130408.png

 

 

 

That being said,

 

Here is the location of the bookmarks in Microsoft Edge insider browser:

 

in Edge insider browser:

 

  • type in this into your address bar: edge://version/
  • at the bottom, look for the "Profile Path"
  • paste it into your File explorer

 

  • For Edge insider Canary it's this location:   C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge SxS\User Data\Default
  • For Edge insider Dev it's this location:         C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge Dev\User Data\Default
  • For Edge insider Beta it's this location:           C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge Beta\User Data\Default
  • Replace "USERNAME" with your own Windows username.

 

  • in that folder, you will find a file called "Bookmarks", that's the file you're looking for.
  • Bookmarks.bak is the backup file for the favorites that Edge browser automatically creates.
  • you can open that Bookmark file with Notepad too.

 

 

Annotation 2019-10-06 131129.png

 

 

@HotCakeXI've looked in ALL of those file locations and none of them have the bookmarks :sad:

You can access it with "%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Edge SxS\User Data", it will automatic resolve the path of application data folder without manual replace the username and driver letter.

That is almost not possible, it will be there if the application was not totally broken.

 

You might check folder "Default", "Profile 1", "Profile 2", etc... inside "User Data", or search it within "User Data" folder

@gocloudNo such directory on my machine.  The "user data" portion that is.  I have all the folders in the appdata path (Edge, Edge Beta, Edge Dev, Edge SXS, and EdgeUpdate), but all are empty.  However, I rather clearly have bookmarks (see attached screenshot)

@Lorne Rogers We are talking about Chromium based Edge, they are totally different code base, and not possible to migrate data without a tool.

 

If you really interested about it, it was stored here: %LocalAppData%\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe\AC\MicrosoftEdge\User\Default

@gocloudNope, already looked there.  Also empty.

@Lorne Rogers For old Edge, It not stored in the favorites folder, you can found a .edb file in "DataStore" folder called "spartan.edb". Again, you can't migrate this into new, Chromium based Edge without the built-in import function, you might able to view it with tools in the web, but hard than import it

@gocloud 

Spoiler

@gocloud wrote:

You can access it with "%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Edge SxS\User Data", it will automatic resolve the path of application data folder without manual replace the username and driver letter.


Yes I know that, but the OP didn't say which channel he/she was using.

that address you wrote only applies to user data folder of Canary channel.

Dev/Beta/Stable all have different locations of their User Data folder.

@Lorne Rogers 

Spoiler

@Lorne Rogers wrote:

@HotCakeXI've looked in ALL of those file locations and none of them have the bookmarks :sad:


Try favorite sync again, it has been improved a lot since you last time posted this.

let it run for a while and after that uninstall your Edge insider (delete user data when asked during uninstall) and then install it again.

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

@gocloudSorry, you're saying that the Edge bookmarks are stored in the EXCHANGE store-it-all file??  Seriously?  Pardon my French here, but, what kind of moronic software engineering approach is THAT??

Yes, not absolutely but your favorites in *old* Edge was there. It was stored in a table called Favorites in that file.

You might use "NirSoft ESEDatabaseView" to open it, but this way really hard.

@HotCakeX 

 

I believe I'm in the beta channel.  So, where would it be?  Because it's not in the "beta" folder.  That, along with the others, is empty.

Nice.  Informative.  AND brief.

 

Only thing i see that is missing is the path for Edge (Chromium)

 

TL