How to backup Firefox History in Linux Mint

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[Charlie]

I know how to backup Firefox bookmarks and have done it many times.  I don’t, however, know how to backup just the History.  Is there a way to do this?  I will have to change to a newer version of Linux Mint and will have to have the FF History with my AOL two step information!

It also would be good to have History backed up in case something bad happens to the SSD or Linux program.  Help with this would be greatly appreciated.

I have Linux Mint Cinnamon version 20 and Firefox 131.0.2

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

• This topic was modified 6 months, 3 weeks ago by Charlie.

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Sorry can’t be of any help as I have history sent to RAM as I use an SSD and have preventive measures in-place to avoid unecessary writes which are cleared upon exit of the browser.

As a starting point IIRC history is stored within places.sqlite in a firefox profile by default.
In mint that’ll be in your Home/mozilla folder..

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Charlie

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There isn’t a feature for backing up just history like there is for bookmarks. Instead, I’ve always recommended backing up the entire Firefox profile, as that will include everything – even extensions.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles

I’ve done this many times when migrating to a new PC and even to a different operating system.

Also, you should always have access to all of your authentication details for every site you log in to, in case one decides to log you out (as my mobile carrier did recently, for the first time in a couple of years).

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Charlie

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When I was using Win 7, I knew right where to go to get Firefox profile files.  With Linux I’m having trouble finding them.  As you say, they allow backing up and restoring Bookmarks, but not History which doesn’t make much sense to me.

Thanks for the link, it does seem like one needs to use the FF browser program to do this and other things.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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on Mint 20.3 Cinnamon go to Home (or equivalently the Files icon in the lower left or also in the start menu) then to the .mozilla folder and then to the firefox folder which will contain profile files.

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Charlie

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Fortunately I realized that I need to show the hidden files, then I can see those Firefox files.  It’s my hope that when Linux Mint version 20 is not supported and I have to update to one that is, I can copy these Firefox profile files into the newer Linux version.  Then I can have all my History, Bookmarks, Extensions, etc. intact.  I’ve got some time but I want to make sure I know how to handle it when the time comes.  Thanks again.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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DrBonzo

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@Charlie –

If you haven’t found the exact location of your FF profile yet, you can always type “about:support” (without the quotes, of course) into the address bar and hit the Enter key. That will give you a listing of all kinds of nice to know things, including the location of your profile folder. It’s in the first section under the “Application Basics” heading, so it’s towards the top of the listings.

While you’re there, might be a good idea to slowly scroll down the page to look at everything that’s there and take notes of anything you believe might be of importance one day. Lots of “geeky” info in there but also lots of nice to know info as well, all in one spot.  🙂

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Charlie

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Yes there certainly are a lot of files and folders!!  I saw “Places.sqlite” and some other possibilities, but I’m not sure exactly what to do with them.  Another was Release.default which I opened and it seemed to have everything in it!

I don’t know why Mozilla can’t make backing up History easy like they do with Bookmarks.  They seem to go out of their way to add all kinds of other things that I generally don’t need.  Why not do something that’s really beneficial (rhetorical question, please pardon my little rant and my lack of knowledge on this).  I really appreciate the help you all are giving me.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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