How do I restore my bookmarks? I have retrieved the file, but nothing seems to work.

Wenex

Hello!

So let me explain first what happened. 3 days ago my Vivaldi profile somehow got corrupted and I have lost all my bookmarks and extensions. Really huge disaster for me since I had a lot of stuff saved on bookmarks. Extension on other hand not really a problem, found the ones that got deleted.

So I decided to use the program to retrieve the lost bookmark file and I found it. However, I can't find a way to fix my bookmarks with it. Copying and pasting it over the bookmark file in /user data/default doesn't work. I tried syncing it up via selecting folder which contains the retrieved bookmark file, didn't worked as well. I honesty have no idea what else I could do. Maybe someone else could help me there? Please, I really want to get my bookmarks back. If someone has time and knowledge, I would appreciate the help through Discord or Steam or whatever platform you suit. Just please...

Pathduck

@Wenex Hello! First of all there should be a file named "Bookmarks.bak" next to the Bookmarks file, it might contain the old bookmarks. But unlikely since it was days ago.

Try this tool, it might allow you to create a backup html file to then import into Vivaldi (File > Import...)

Last, learn to regularly backup your bookmarks and definitely turn on Sync once you're back up and running

Wenex

@Pathduck said in How do I restore my bookmarks? I have retrieved the file, but nothing seems to work.:

@Wenex Hello! First of all there should be a file named "Bookmarks.bak" next to the Bookmarks file, it might contain the old bookmarks. But unlikely since it was days ago.

Try this tool, it might allow you to create a backup html file to then import into Vivaldi (File > Import...)

Last, learn to regularly backup your bookmarks and definitely turn on Sync once you're back up and running

The bookmarks.bak file in my default was the same as the bookmark file, which has empty tabs. I did like I said found the old bookmarks which was over 1 mb of size (while empty was 4kb).

Also I said that the importing didn't worked with retrieved bookmark file. So is there another way of solving that?

Pathduck

@Wenex Did you try the tool with the old bookmarks file?
EDIT: Looks like I forgot to actually link the tool LOL, too tired
https://rongjiecomputer.github.io/chrome/bookmark-recovery/#windows

Also Bookmarks are JSON files so you should be able to view it in any good text editor, or preferably in a tool like JSONEdit.
http://tomeko.net/software/JSONedit/

Wenex

@Pathduck said in How do I restore my bookmarks? I have retrieved the file, but nothing seems to work.:

@Wenex Did you try the tool with the old bookmarks file?
EDIT: Looks like I forgot to actually link the tool LOL, too tired
https://rongjiecomputer.github.io/chrome/bookmark-recovery/#windows

I fail to understand the 3. and 4.

"In search bar, type Bookmarks, you will see a list of files named Bookmarks and/or Bookmarks.bak. (Note: If there is more than one user using the same Chrome, bookmarks from other users will be listed too)
Select all the files with mouse and drag them to the block below."

Am I supposed to drop my retrieved bookmark.bak into the drop zone below the instruction? If so it says "invalid file type" as error.

Pathduck

@Wenex You said in your first post you had a restored copy of your old bookmarks file. So drag that into the tool. Don't worry too much about following the instructions exactly, if you have the old bookmarks file available, just drag it in.

Did you restore your Bookmarks or Bookmarks.bak file? Ideally you should've restored your Bookmarks file but they should also be the same.

Ayespy

@Wenex said in How do I restore my bookmarks? I have retrieved the file, but nothing seems to work.:

So I decided to use the program to retrieve the lost bookmark file and I found it.

That may be the problem. Could you describe this in more detail please? What program? What file did you find? How?

Wenex

@Ayespy said in How do I restore my bookmarks? I have retrieved the file, but nothing seems to work.:

@Wenex said in How do I restore my bookmarks? I have retrieved the file, but nothing seems to work.:

So I decided to use the program to retrieve the lost bookmark file and I found it.

That may be the problem. Could you describe this in more detail please? What program? What file did you find? How?

I used MiniTool Power Data Recovery. I found the file in C:\Users...\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\User Data\Default.
The file was called like that: https://prnt.sc/rcrf1l and marked as temp. I changed extension to none and .bak (as both files appear in Default) and none of those worked so far.

Are you implying the program didn't recovered the file as intended? If so which program should I use?

I'm really tired of that. I wasted prolly 3 hours tonight trying to fix that and nothing works. Have no idea what to do now.

Pathduck

@Wenex Most data recovery tools give an indication on the chances of successfully recovering the file. Sometimes the file's been overwritten and you won't be able to recover it.

Also is that date the modification date? If so I doubt it's the correct file.

Like I said earlier the Bookmarks file is a JSON file (plain text) so you should be able to open it in notepad and examine it. Or the JSONedit tool linked above.

Ayespy

@Wenex Don't use a program. Is the profile (Default) or any of its contents still intact?

The file retrieved by your program has nothing to do with bookmarks. You need to take a completely different approach to this. Hopefully, you did NOT replace your bookmarks file with the one your program "retrieved."

If you did, and have since Opened Vivaldi, your bookmarks may be gone forever.

Your Bookmarks file is named "Bookmarks" with no extension. It has no other name. There is also a Bookmarks.bak file.

refresh your profile

Wenex

@Pathduck said in How do I restore my bookmarks? I have retrieved the file, but nothing seems to work.:

@Wenex Most data recovery tools give an indication on the chances of successfully recovering the file. Sometimes the file's been overwritten and you won't be able to recover it.

Also is that date the modification date? If so I doubt it's the correct file.

Like I said earlier the Bookmarks file is a JSON file (plain text) so you should be able to open it in notepad and examine it. Or the JSONedit tool linked above.

Not sure why it said 2016 there, but it's 2018 when it's located on my hard drive. http://prntscr.com/rcs4lc

Should it be 2020 if it was removed like 3 days ago? The modification date I mean.

I'm not really tech savy. I don't understand what do you mean that the file is JSON file orwhy would I open it. But again, after my tabs disappeared the bookmark file I found in my userdata was freshly created and it had 4kb... there's no way it contatained my previous tabs.

Ayespy

@Wenex previous tabs and bookmarks are unrelated.

Wenex

@Ayespy said in How do I restore my bookmarks? I have retrieved the file, but nothing seems to work.:

@Wenex Don't use a program. Is the profile (Default) or any of its contents still intact?

The file retrieved by your program has nothing to do with bookmarks. You need to take a completely different approach to this. Hopefully, you did NOT replace your bookmarks file with the one your program "retrieved."

If you did, and have since Opened Vivaldi, your bookmarks may be gone forever.

Your Bookmarks file is named "Bookmarks" with no extension. It has no other name. There is also a Bookmarks.bak file.

refresh your profile

Yes to first question. The only thing (I noticed at least) which disappeared was extensions and bookmarks.

I did replaced because like I said in above reply, the bookmark file I found in my userdata was freshly created and has size of 4kb. It didn't contain my previous tabs.

Pathduck

@Wenex The Bookmarks file is a plain text file and you should be able to open it in Notepad (Or the much better Notepad++), and examine if it contains any bookmarks at all.

The file size 1.1MB does seem like it might be the correct file though. But no way of knowing without examining it and maybe then you can save something.

If you extensions disappeared as well, I kind of suspect something related to profiles happened. Did you play around with different profiles when it happened?

Wenex

@Ayespy said in How do I restore my bookmarks? I have retrieved the file, but nothing seems to work.:

@Wenex previous tabs and bookmarks are unrelated.

Okay, so is this possible for me to open that "retrieved" file and open it in notepad to see the tabs names I had? Like the titles or even websites? If that's possible, then it would help me. I could manually find and re-add all of the tabs back. It would take time, but it's better than nothing I guess.

If so, how do I go about opening this file to view it's content?

@edit
Okay, I will check it out, thank you.

Ayespy

@Wenex I do not understand why you keep using the term "tabs" if we are talking about bookmarks. You will not find tabs in a bookmarks file. Ever. You will find tabs in a tabs file or a session file. Tabs and bookmarks have nothing to do with each other.

Wenex

@Ayespy said in How do I restore my bookmarks? I have retrieved the file, but nothing seems to work.:

@Wenex I do not understand why you keep using the term "tabs" if we are talking about bookmarks. You will not find tabs in a bookmarks file. Ever. You will find tabs in a tabs file or a session file. Tabs and bookmarks have nothing to do with each other.

That's just my terrible english. I guess I'm thinking of bookmarks, but tab is what comes to my mind sometimes. I do mean bookmarks though.

I tried opening the bookmark file I retrieved in Notepad++ and it is full or chaotic text that doesn't make any sense. So I guess you are right that it's not correct file. Right now I'm trying to find different program that can find bookmark file that's bigger in size. I should be looking for bookmark file that's like dozen mb in size? Or maybe hundereds?

If you extensions disappeared as well, I kind of suspect something related to profiles happened. Did you play around with different profiles when it happened?

Not really. Wasn't touching anything related to Vivaldi. Be it settings or folders.

Pathduck

@Wenex The bookmarks file is a special format and it might look chaotic. Of course it might be completely messed up and then there's nothing to do about it.

How many bookmarks did you have? I have about 700 and my file is 6.8MB.

For comparison, here's how the start of my Bookmarks file looks:

{
   "checksum": "893e42cbef6ccdf60e4fcabf8353cfe3",
   "roots": {
      "bookmark_bar": {
         "children": [ {
            "children": [ {
               "children": [ {
                  "date_added": "12703340184000000",
                  "guid": "288f7a31-5997-40c7-978c-bc4129f0f370",
                  "id": "2445",
                  "meta_info": {
                     "Description": "",
                     "Nickname": "",
                     "Speeddial": "false",
                     "Thumbnail": "",
                     "last_visited_desktop": "13203518101303354"
                  },

Wenex

@Pathduck said in How do I restore my bookmarks? I have retrieved the file, but nothing seems to work.:

@Wenex The bookmarks file is a special format and it might look chaotic. Of course it might be completely messed up and then there's nothing to do about it.

How many bookmarks did you have? I have about 700 and my file is 6.8MB.

For comparison, here's how the start of my Bookmarks file looks:
{
   "checksum": "893e42cbef6ccdf60e4fcabf8353cfe3",
   "roots": {
      "bookmark_bar": {
         "children": [ {
            "children": [ {
               "children": [ {
                  "date_added": "12703340184000000",
                  "guid": "288f7a31-5997-40c7-978c-bc4129f0f370",
                  "id": "2445",
                  "meta_info": {
                     "Description": "",
                     "Nickname": "",
                     "Speeddial": "false",
                     "Thumbnail": "",
                     "last_visited_desktop": "13203518101303354"
                  },

The retrieved bookmark file found looks like this. http://prntscr.com/rcshky

This is definately not how it's supposed to look.

Probably around 300-400 bookmarks if I had to guess.

Ayespy

@Wenex Yeah. If that ever was a bookmarks file, it isn't any more.