Export/Import for User Settings

[brenji]

How about adding a feature to export/import settings as JSON or XML?

[RasheedHolland]

@brenji said in Export/Import for User Settings:

How about adding a feature to export/import settings as JSON or XML?

Yes, great idea! I just installed a portable/standalone version of Vivaldi 5.7, and once again I need to reconfigure everything, this is ridiculous. To clarify, I still have Vivaldi 5.6 installed, so I didn't fully upgrade yet because Vivaldi 5.7 may have certain bugs.

[pafflick]

This request has been moved to the pipeline, which means that we will look into providing a method for exporting & importing user settings without having to rely on Sync. Once the work starts, this topic will be tagged as "In progress".

[eugenesv]

Thanks for moving this request to the pipeline. Would you please consider an improvement in the config/export format so that it's suitable for version control so that users could easier backup/restore just the smaller portions of the most important configs they spend time tweaking?
Basically, there should be one smaller properly formatted file that has only the directly user-manipulated settings stored in there, not a dump with all the extra noise of "adverse_ad_block": {last_update": etc.
(it's ok if there is a big dump as well, you should also be able to import the smaller portion that would overwrite the smaller part of that big file)

[RasheedHolland]

@pafflick said in Export/Import for User Settings:

This request has been moved to the pipeline, which means that we will look into providing a method for exporting & importing user settings without having to rely on Sync. Once the work starts, this topic will be tagged as "In progress".

Any news on this? It's really frustrating that everytime that I install a new version (so without upgrade) I keep having to configure all settings again. In fact, I even have to do this when creating a new profile on the same browser, which is even crazier.

[dalinar]

also it would be great if there can be an export command chain(s) button (at least copy it to clipboard or something) so that you can easily import it into another profile.

this would be great right under the command chains editor.

[RasheedHolland]

@pafflick said in Export/Import for User Settings:

This request has been moved to the pipeline, which means that we will look into providing a method for exporting & importing user settings without having to rely on Sync. Once the work starts, this topic will be tagged as "In progress".

And by the way, also make sure to give an option to save zoom settings, it's very annoying that you keep having to configure this. And what about passwords? I don't know if it's an option to develop a new Vivaldi built-in password manager.

[ryofurue]

@pafflick said in Export/Import for User Settings:

This request has been moved to the pipeline, which means that we will look into providing a method for exporting & importing user settings without having to rely on Sync. Once the work starts, this topic will be tagged as "In progress".

Can somebody elaborate on how the new feature will work?

We sometimes experience a severe problem for which the only solution is to erase the user data. (See the Mac forum now, for example.)

This new feature may be useful for this trouble shooting, if

1. Bookmarks, Tabs-and-Workspaces, Extensions, and Settings are stored in separate files and can be exported and imported separately.
2. "Import" can be done outside Vivaldi: All the user have to do is to copy these files.

Point 1 is to minimize the damage of erasing the user data. You may lose Settings, for example, but may be able to reuse the other two files.

Point 2 is important when Vivaldi crashes at launch!

[BaakerBhaai]

It's 2024 and it's crazy that Vivaldi still doesn't offer a basic feature like settings export.
While many browsers sync settings automatically in the background.

[mib2berlin]

@BaakerBhaai
I support this request but which Chromium browser support the export of all settings?
At moment 221 settings are synced, more than enough to start a new install.

Cheers, mib

[Pesala]

@BaakerBhaai Vivaldi does automatically sync many settings, but some are missing, and we need a local copy as a backup.

[derDay]

@mib2berlin said:

At moment 221 settings are synced, more than enough to start a new install.

where can I see, which settings are "syncable"?

[Pesala]

@derDay See Settings, Sync and vivaldi://sync-internals

[RasheedHolland]

@Pesala said in Export/Import for User Settings:

@BaakerBhaai Vivaldi does automatically sync many settings, but some are missing, and we need a local copy as a backup.

@derDay said in Export/Import for User Settings:

where can I see, which settings are "syncable"?

And like I said before, zoom settings should also be included in exportable settings, also via sync.

[Giresharu]

This feature is very much needed. Compared to other browsers, Vivaldi has a multitude of customizable features. Conversely, because of this, it can be very painful to manually adjust the configuration again when creating a new user profile in Vivaldi. The web sync feature cannot fully meet this need. This is because when we use multiple profiles, most of the time, we want to log in to different accounts on certain websites and browse the web under different identities. If we use the sync feature, then everything that shouldn’t be synced gets synced in.

[dalinar]

I suggest:

1. Import/Export a single XML file
2. ability to backup the XML to cloud (time stamped but with editable name) and to restore them from a saved backup in the cloud to the current profile (so this way multiple browsers or profiles can be restored to from the same backup)

[electryon]

Chromium's Initial preferences is a good way to have your chromium and vivaldi setup pre-configured with the settings you want.
You have to create the json file yourself, find the settings and add them, but it works great.
Initial preferences work not only with chromium normal preferences, it works even with secure preferences.
It even works with extensions, you can configure it to auto-install from chrome's store the extensions you want automatically.

Initial Preferences
https://www.chromium.org/administrators/configuring-other-preferences/

Pre-installing Extensions
https://www.chromium.org/administrators/pre-installed-extensions/

[mib2berlin]

@electryon
Hi, very interesting, just setup Vivaldi with basic settings an copy the Preferences file over to a new install.
It should be possible to even add workspaces, mail and more if you copy the corresponding folders, too.
I tested this with the Mail and the Sessions folders.

Cheers, mib

[ericknoleto]

@electryon Gonna try this later and save the result in google drive (with correspondent version installer too)

I hate to redo all the settings when I need to create a new profile... And with the installer saved I can restore it to a new machine.

Still, having this feature on a menu option would be really nice...

[electryon]

@mib2berlin said in Export/Import for User Settings:

@electryon
Hi, very interesting, just setup Vivaldi with basic settings an copy the Preferences file over to a new install.
It should be possible to even add workspaces, mail and more if you copy the corresponding folders, too.
I tested this with the Mail and the Sessions folders.

Cheers, mib

Yes, this is also a good way to backup your settings.
initial_preferences is more flexible though.
Vivaldi actually has its own initial_preferences file.
It is in vivaldi's installation folder, the folder where vivaldi.exe is located.
If you edit or replace this file with your own, then every new profile will be created with the defaults of this file:)
And it applies your settings stored in the file not only to the Preferences file, it applies them to the Secure Preferences file.
With the Secure Preferences you can even change the default engine from Bing to whatever you want, this information is stored in the Secure Preferences file.
Also have a look at this file in the Vivaldi installation folder.
"\resources\vivaldi\prefs_definitions.json"
It is a treasure of information:)
It has all Vivaldi's settings and how to be stored in json format.