How to backup and restore your Firefox Passwords?
Firefox has a built in password manager that helps you store usernames and passwords for the sites you need to login and use. Once the username/passwords are saved by the password manager, you can visit these sites and login without having to remember the login details.
Recently I came across an issue with my computer causing it not to start properly. I was afraid that Firefox would crash due to the repeated restarts and sure it enough it did. But before it did crash, I made a backup of the passwords list so that I can use it when I reinstall Firefox.
Backing up the passwords:
- First, download the Password Exporter Firefox Extension.
- Install the add-on the usual way.
- Go to Tools ->Options -> Security and click on Import/Export Passwords to get the window below.
- Now click on the Export Passwords button. Select a location and name for the file to be saved.
- You can save the passwords in the XML (eXtended Markup Language) or the CSV (Comma Separated Values) format
- You can also choose to encrypt the passwords and usernames in the exported file. But the encryption is crackable if somebody else accesses the file and imports the passwords.
- Thus, you have successfully backed up your passwords
Restoring the passwords:
- Ensure that the the computer to where you are exporting the passwords has Firefox with the Password Exporter extension installed.
- Go to Tools ->Options -> Security and click on Import/Export Passwords
- Click on the Import Passwords button
- Choose the file (xml or csv) where you have stored the passwords and click OK
- Your passwords will automatically be imported into Firefox
- Not only that, it will automatically be entered into login forms into the websites without you having to prompt it.
You can also import and export the password lists for sites that do not save your passwords the same way as above. The only bit of caution I would like to add is to move and store the xml or csv file in a secure manner. However, if you were too worried about security you would not be saving passwords in the password manager.
I hope you enjoyed the post and please do leave your opinions and comments. Do share the post if you find it useful and thanks for reading!
Keep up to date
Want to know the latest? Subscribe to our RSS or get Regular Email Updates.
Share the Post
Related Posts
Post-Plugin Library missingRecent Posts
- Online Casino Spotlight - Your Guide to Online Gambling
- 120 GB Western Digital Passport Up For Grabs With TechieBuzz
- Win Nokia 5130 Xpressmusic With Techie Buzz
- Win 3 AMD ATI Radeon 3850 Series Graphics Cards With TechieBuzz
- Get The Best Of Web Hosts With Kubus
- Get the latest Gadget News With Gadget Advisor
- Choose the perfect host with Web Hosting Rating!
- Blaze Media Pro - All In One Multimedia Solution
- Get Branded Promotional Products With Empire Promos
- Tools To Extract Audios From Video Files
Popular Posts
- 5 Surefire Ways To Increase Comments On Your Blog (53)
- 3 reasons why comment relish is not good for your blog (50)
- Top 5 ways to track blog comments (25)
- How To See Infrared Light Easily, At Home! (23)
- How to backup and restore your Firefox Passwords? (21)
- How to get an awesome Web 2.0 name? (19)
- Does PayPerPost work for you? (19)
- One stop service to check site popularity (18)
- 8 places to get the best free movie subtitles (16)
- Watermark Your Images Online For Free! (16)
21 People have responded. What about you?
Liked this post. Stumbled
Thanks for the comment and the stumble, Vaibhav!
I don’t really use the Password Manager in Firefox. Anyways, good post. Stumbled!
Thanks again Shankar! Since nobody but me uses my computer, I dont mind storing passwords on it
Hi there,
I really liked the post. it’s very useful & the more & more i discover about Firefox the more i fall in love with it.
A very nice, helpful & informative blog.
I liked it.
Keep going.
Generally I dont use password managers in Firefox to store passwords, if I start using I’ll try this one. BTW Nice find.
@Nirmal: I wonder if I am the solitary person who uses this?
Sunil, thanks for your kind words..
I do let Firefox handle my password. Even then I doubt if i’m going to export the password for later recovery. Anyway nice find…!
I use the export feature only during emergencies, like if I suspect that firefox may crash etc. and I delete the exported list as soon as I import it!
thanks man.
i needed a solution something like this.
Welcome Sumit and thanks for your comments!
Thanks for the guide! But what if you didn’t export your passwords? I had a bad computer crash requiring a complete reinstall of the OS. I have installed windows on a new HDD and still have the old disk, any way to retrieve my stored passwords from the old disk?
Nico, a windows crash does not necessarily mean the end of the world.
If you haven’t formatted the old disk, you can try repairing the windows installation on it, instead of formatting and reinstalling. After the repair, try opening FF and see if the passwords still exist..
If Windows is beyond repair, then it may not be possible to recover the passwords..
It was beyond repair, but I still have the old disk. Are their no tools available to import my passwords from the old disk?
There isn’t anything much you can do at this point. The best option would be to ask for professional data recovery help and this would cost you around a 100 bucks at the least.
If your passwords are that vital, then you could do this. Or else, just starting over would be the best possible option.
Data recovery isn’t the problem, I can still read the disk, it was just windows that was really screwed up. I think I’ve visited most websites again since the reinstall and have re-stored my passwords
Passwords are pretty much stored in the documents and settings folder under your username.. That folder is lost when the Windows installation gets screwed(as it’s part of the install). So you’ve effectively lost the passwords for good..
Atleast, you’ve started over now.. If there is anything else I can do to help do let me know!
@Vijay
I don’t think you were understanding what Nico was asking.
@Nico
If you have access to your previous Firefox profile folder (typically under your user in Application Data under Documents and Settings) you can grab out two files and plop them into your new Firefox profile folder. The two files are key#.db (typically key3.db) and signons#.txt (typically signons2.txt).
You can read more about each file here:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Signons2.txt
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Key3.db
Naturally the plugin is great if you happen to backup before you reinstall but if you can’t you should just be able to simply copy your backed up files into the new location.
@Jared: Thanks for the research and I am glad that you posted a solution for Nico’s problem. I do apologize for misinformation earlier, if any..
@Nico: Do try out Jared’s suggestion and let us know how it went.
useful post. thanks. I am dw the add on now
thanks. this is useful. i manage lots of password over thousand program