I had a lot of bookmarks in a Chrome browser on a Windows 7 system. That computer crashed. We now have a new computer with Windows 8. How can I retrieve my bookmarks from the Windows 7 system? I was told it can be done, but not how to do it.
5 Answers
I faced the same problem and resolved it personally. Below is the resolution:-
Simply goto the drive on which your chrome was installed earlier and then goto the path like
D:(Older Drive Name)\Users\User\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\default
and then from there copy the Bookmarks file and paste it in the new OS at the same location in different drive like in my case it was C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default.
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3This works on Windows 10; however you must have at least one bookmark on the existing instance of chrome (so that the
Bookmarksfile exists) for it to work. If theBookmarksfolder doesn't appear in theDefaultfolder before you copy the old one it, nothing will show up. Commented Apr 23, 2018 at 22:59
If you have access to your old HDD and the file system is not corrupt, then copy your Chrome user profile to your new machine and you will have all your preferences, settings, bookmarks and history.
Chrome user profiles in Windows Vista and higher should be located in:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\
FYI:
I say Reinstate Monica
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answered Aug 23, 2014 at 0:17
If you have a Google account which you used to synchronize with Chrome all you have to do is the following:
Go to the upper right hand part of the chrome browser under the 'x' and select the settings menu. From there select "Sign in to Chrome" login with your Google account and your bookmarks should transfer over.
IF you did not previously do this you will need access to the old hard drive of your computer and copy the favorites from: C:\Users\{User Account}\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
Since 2014 Chromium and Chrome partially encrypts user profile/data folder with OS API for cryptography (DPAPI in windows): https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/Chrome-encrypt-web-cookies-tool.html https://codereview.chromium.org/24734007.
For example, question about decryption: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22532870/encrypted-cookies-in-chrome
Copying of "Google\Chrome\User Data\" folder is not enough to have all data saved; there are some tools able to extract data from the hard drive of other Windows 7 installation: (How to migrate Google Chrome profile (extensions, cookies, etc.) to another Windows installation?) - https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/dpapi_data_decryptor.html
In my case I only could restore bookmarks using the method below :
(I had to replace windows 7 with Windows 10, HD crashed)
1: Installed Chrome on the new computer, then Deleted the Chrome folder, %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\
2: Copied the Chrome folder from old Hard Drive to the above location.
