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Where did my favorites go?

Anonymous
2022-08-05T03:23:01+00:00

I bought a new laptop 2 weeks ago. Transitioning over has been pretty smooth. I spent a week or so getting to know Windows 11 and the new laptop. Today, when i went to resume a pet project that I have hundreds of favorites saved in my favorites bar for (all organized into folders), all but a few have completely disappeared. HUNDREDS of links that I spent more time than I care to fathom gathering over a span of three years are completely gone. From ALL of my devices. I tried to restore it to previous versions, but there are oddly no previous versions on any of the systems beyond 2 days ago according to both laptops. This is just devastating to me now. I have browsed and searched for solutions, but nothing seems to be working. In fact, my old laptop has even fewer links in the favorites bar now than the new laptop and I fear my links are all going to just get swallowed into the void. I need a solution here.

Microsoft Edge | Favorites, history, and downloads | Windows 11

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-08-06T19:00:53+00:00

    ... there are oddly no previous versions on any of the systems

    Edge has several ways of making sure your favourites don't get lost. Sumit has explained how to find the back-ups in your profile directory, but there may be others. Files called Bookmarks may have the extension .bak or .msbak, or no extension at all. They're all the same sort of file; the extensions simply distinguish between the current version (no extension) and back-ups.

    Please open a File Explorer window at this folder:

    "%localappdata%\Microsoft\Edge\User Data"

    Then search within it for files named Bookmarks (type name:bookmarks into the File Explorer search box so that Search doesn't look for irrelevant files that happen to contain the word bookmarks).

    Are there any that look likely?

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  2. Sumit D - IA 165.7K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2022-08-05T04:28:47+00:00

    Hi Quinn,

    I am Sumit here to assist you with this question.

    Weird. We can see if there is a bookmarks backup in the old one.

    Press Windows+R keys on the keyboard, or Right-click Start on the Taskbar and choose Run.

    Type %localappdata%\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default

    Press Enter.

    Do you see a bookmarks.bak file? If so, is its size same or larger than bookmarks file?

    Keep us posted.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-08-06T00:22:31+00:00

    I also have Edge installed and use it regularly on my phone (Galaxy s20 5G). The favorites have disappeared from there as well.

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  4. Sumit D - IA 165.7K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2022-08-05T12:28:37+00:00

    This seems to be a disappointing thing. Do you remember any other device where you logged into Edge, like a phone?

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-08-05T10:29:44+00:00

    On the old laptop this file exists, and it is the same size and the bookmarks file.

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