[HOW TO] Manually Backup/Restore/Transfer your profile to another device 🖥↔💾↔💻

mossman

Very thorough description (maybe too thorough). For the less fussy, I have now transferred my profile a number of times and simply do the following:

Install Vivaldi somewhere, run it and close it
copy the "User" directory from another installation (I usually use a standalone installation on my USB key)
run Vivaldi again and just re-do the bits that are broken (passwords, extensions)

Apart from slowly re-submitting passwords when I first use the sites again, the whole thing takes about five minutes.

JuniorSilva30

@pafflick said in [HOW TO] Backup/Restore/Transfer your profile (User Data) to another device :

Bookmarks: This contains bookmarks and Speed Dials information.

Does this also export the nicknames of the sites I've created ?

pafflick

@JuniorSilva30 Yes, you can copy just the Bookmarks file (along with its backup, that is Bookmarks.bak) and your bookmarks will be imported with their nicknames & descriptions (if you used them). Some of the bookmarks thumbnails might be missing, though.

JuniorSilva30

@pafflick Thanks for the info! I'll make a backup of my favorites because I do not want to lose my nicknames!

pafflick

@mossman Yeah, I know that for a power-user such tutorial may be too thorough, however, I believe that a power-user won't need such tutorial anyway...

mossman

@pafflick yeah, I just thought I'd throw the "abridged version" out there for those who can do it that way instead.

Scorpiopt115

the export function no longer works has the option disappeared

rudra.b

Though the forum gave me option to make a new thread, I found that moderator updated his first post.

I copied the user data folder and pasted it on the specified folder after a format of Windows 7. Now saved password section does not show any password saved.

But on the log in page, I can see the usernames are being suggested. But no password.

Like in Opera v12, passwords are saved as wand.dat, does Vivaldi do it ?

mib2berlin

@rudra-b
Hi, Vivaldi use the Windows ID for decode too and if you reinstall Windows from scratch you get a new user ID.
No way to encrypt you password, I fear.
Do you have a Vivaldi installation on a different computer?
Then you can use Vivaldi sync to get your password back.

Cheers, mib

Ayespy

@rudra-b The instructions are in the top post. If you did not export your passwords to a safe space before you formatted Windows 7, you have lost them. You now have a new Windows user profile, and Vivaldi can only read the passwords within the same profile where they were originally stored by Vivaldi. It is as though you have moved them to a different computer. Vivaldi can no longer read them because the user profile encryption key has changed.

Edit: If you were synced to another installation on another machine, you can recover the passwords through sync.

pafflick

@rudra-b No, it's different in Vivaldi (or Chromium, on which Vivaldi is based - in general). You have to export your passwords first and only then you can get them back. The wand.dat file in the old Opera was handy, but at the same time, it was easy to crack. Chromium uses a safer method of encrypting your passwords, but if you don't export (or sync) them before removing your profile, you can't get them back.

austinflorida

It would be quite easy to script this. Alas, I don't wish to spare the time right now. Perhaps someone could? It would definitely be a popular script. Perhaps it could even be done as a Chrome/Vivaldi extension. Look at how many views this post has.

->> Austin

austinflorida

Note:

For some reason when I first typed "vivaldi://about" (no quotes) into the address bar, I was presented with a list of valid "vivaldi:" shortcuts instead of the about page. It appears to be a bug that probably affects a very small subset of users who have used Vivaldi in a very particular way, installed/uninstalled certain extensions, ect...

Anyways, for any users who this happens to, the way I got to the actual "Vivaldi About" page referenced in this article was to type the following in the address bar:

"vivaldi:about" (no quotes)

aka

vivaldi:about

and then press [Enter] (or [Return]) on the keyboard. This redirected me to the correct "Vivaldi About" page which had "vivaldi://about/" in the address bar.

-> Austin

pafflick

@austinflorida said in [HOW TO] Backup/Restore/Transfer your profile (User Data) to another device :

It would be quite easy to script this. (...) Perhaps it could even be done as a Chrome/Vivaldi extension.

I don't think so... We have to keep in mind that people use various operating systems, they have Vivaldi installed in various locations (many of which are stand-alone installations and therefore they have their profiles stored in a different location). Sure, we could get the profile path from the browser itself, or just have the user type it in manually (which can be problematic for some people), but then what? How do we get passwords out of the browser via script? You would have to either recreate Chromium's password exporting feature or create some app to operate the browser externally.

I'm not saying it's impossible, it just seems like a tremendous task. Well, maybe except that Chrome/Vivaldi extension thing - that might actually be impossible.

You could automate some parts of this process, but there's just so many variables, that I doubt that there would be anyone willing to actually do this (unless they really needed it for themselves)...

@austinflorida said in [HOW TO] Backup/Restore/Transfer your profile (User Data) to another device :

For some reason when I first typed "vivaldi://about" (no quotes) into the address bar, I was presented with a list of valid "vivaldi:" shortcuts instead of the about page.

It happens when you select that address and click on "Go to URL" in the context menu or when you select to open that link in current or a new tab. It shouldn't appear when you type it into the address bar manually. That's strange...

mossman

I don't think we actually need to worry about doing our own backup any more...

We can sync everything for a few months now and I think they said that that sync data would eventually be exportable for backup.

Zalex108

As an extra,
this tool may help on saving multiple profile passwords easly.

Works on Chromium based browsers.

Tested on V and O.
Just works for the same UserID - no pass required.

At least on multiple profiles you can skip the Flags step.

Zalex108