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

pafflick

[UPDATED ON Oct 14, 2021]

The profile path

First of all, you need to know the path of your User Data/Default folder, as it contains all the data that you will need to make a backup (with the exception of passwords & login data, but more on that later). To find out what is the path on your device, do the following:

Go to: vivaldi://about.
Check the "Profile Path" entry.
Navigate to that folder and go one directory up, so that you can see the Default folder.
For example, if your profile path is C:\Programs\Vivaldi\User Data\Default, just go to C:\Programs\Vivaldi\User Data.

PREPARATION (before you begin):

The passwords and login data are encrypted and you cannot simply copy them over to another device. First, you'll have to export them.
(You can use Vivaldi's Sync feature or an extension like eg. LastPass to store your passwords - in such case, you can skip the first step):

Go to vivaldi://settings/privacy/, and under PASSWORDS click on "Export passwords".
WARNING Exported passwords are saved in plain text. That means anyone who gains access to that file can read all of your passwords. You should keep that file in a secure location and delete it as soon as you import the passwords back to Vivaldi.
To keep your backup file smaller, you can clear all browsing data & history (Menu > Tools > Clear Private Data) before proceeding (optional).
If you want to have your backup file smaller but also prefer to keep your browsing data & history, you can just back up your profile first and then clear the private data. Then make another backup of your profile (with no browsing data). Now you can restore the first backup to get your browsing data & history back and use the other backup to transfer your profile to another device (optional).
If you use custom thumbnails for your Speed Dial, you'll have to back them up separately (optional).

BACK UP your profile:

Close Vivaldi.
Copy the Default folder onto another drive/directory or ZIP it with 7-Zip or similar software.
Copy your exported passwords separately (preferably packed in a password-protected archive - it won't be unhackable, but it's better than no protection at all).
Copy your custom thumbnails (if you have any) and make sure to remember the exact path of the folder in which you store them.

RESTORE your profile:

Close Vivaldi.
If your profile is corrupted or you lost some data that you'd like to recover now, you can delete your current Default folder (you can create another backup first, just in case) and then restore your old copy of the Default folder.
If you use custom thumbnails for your Speed Dial, you have to put them in the same location as they were on the profile from your backup or add each one of them manually through the browser.
If you're restoring your profile after a system reinstall, you'll have to import your passwords manually and install all of your extensions again (check the instructions below).

TRANSFER your profile to another device:

Install Vivaldi, if it's not on your new device already.
Make sure you know the profile path on your new device (see "The Profile Path" at the beginning of this post).
Make sure that you're transferring data between the same versions of Vivaldi (compare the versions on vivaldi://about/).
Close Vivaldi and wait for all of its processes to stop.
Delete the Default directory and put the one that you copied from your other device in its place (but keep a separate copy of it - you might need it in steps 11-12).
Start Vivaldi. If you use Sync to transfer your passwords/extensions, then go to step 13.
Go to vivaldi://flags/#password-import and enable the Password Import feature. Relaunch Vivaldi. (You can disable that feature afterward, but it's optional).
Go to chrome://settings/passwords and import your passwords - click on the three dots button (⋮) next to "Saved Passwords", choose "Import" and point to the file with your exported passwords.
Go to the Extensions page (Menu > Tools > Extensions or vivaldi://extensions).
Open the menu on the left and click on "Open Chrome Web Store".
Download and install all the extensions that you need on this device. If you had them installed on the other profile, all of their settings should be restored automatically as well.
If you forgot some of the extensions that you had on your other profile or can't find them in the store, go to the Default folder from your backup and navigate to the Extensions catalog. There'll be a bunch of folders with long names. Copy the name of each folder and just search for it using a search engine of your choosing. It should give you a link to the Chrome Web Store page of that extension.
If you use custom thumbnails for your Speed Dial, you have to put them in an identical location as they were on the other device or add each one of them manually through the browser.

You can easily sync some single files (like Bookmarks, Notes, or Sessions) manually. You can do it by copying certain files from the Default folder. Here are some of them:

Bookmarks: This contains bookmarks and Speed Dials information.
Notes: This contains notes information.
Sessions: This contains saved tabs sessions.
Web Data: This contains autofill data.
Current Session: This contains data on open tabs.
Other files and their roles are described here.

Warning Using a copy of your profile in another Vivaldi installation with enabled Sync may result in broken "remote sessions". More information / solution here.

pafflick

I haven't tested this severely (especially on other systems than Windows), so you might stumble upon some issues that I haven't mentioned here. If so, please let me know, so that we could fix it.

If you should have any thoughts/ideas/suggestions on how to improve this tutorial, don't hesitate to tell me. I hope that we could use it later as a reference for anyone who might need it. I've seen some tutorials on this topic already, but all of them were incomplete - that's why I urged myself to create this one.

g_bartsch

@pafflick Nice work. Thank you. I've bookmarked this for when I need it.

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