How to sync your browser data with firefox sync
Chris HoffmanChris Hoffman
Editor-in-Chief
Chris Hoffman is Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. He’s written about technology for over a decade and was a PCWorld columnist for two years. Chris has written for The New York Times, been interviewed as a technology expert on TV stations like Miami’s NBC 6, and had his work covered by news outlets like the BBC. Since 2011, Chris has written over 2,000 articles that have been read nearly one billion times—and that’s just here at How-To Geek. Read more.
Firefox Sync allows you to access your open tabs, bookmarks, history, passwords and preferences everywhere, whether you’re using a laptop, desktop or smartphone. Firefox Sync also works as a backup for your browser data.
Firefox Sync’s local encryption keeps your synced data private, but complicates the setup process. Setting up sync isn’t just a matter of logging in with the same password everywhere.
Enable Sync
Start by selecting “Set Up Sync” in the Firefox menu. You can also open Firefox’s Options window, click over to the Sync pane and click the “Set Up Firefox Sync” link.
If you’re a new user, you’ll have to create a Firefox sync account.
One interesting option you’ll find here is the server selection box — organizations can set up their own Firefox Sync servers instead of using Mozilla’s.
Firefox will encrypt your browser data and store it on the Firefox Sync servers. No one can view your data without knowing your key.
Sync Options
Customize the types of data Firefox syncs by clicking the Sync Options button while setting up Sync, or opening Firefox’s options window and clicking over to the Sync pane. From here, you can also set a name to identify your computer.
Adding a Device
Add another device by selecting “Set Up Sync” in its the Firefox menu and clicking “I Have an Account.” You’ll see a code.
Go back to your first device, open Firefox’s options window, click over to the Sync pane and select “Pair a Device.”
You’ll be asked to enter the code from the other device.
Once you have, the two devices will be paired.
Firefox on Your Smartphone
Use Firefox Mobile for Android or Firefox Home for iPhone to access your bookmarks, open tabs and other synchronized data on the go.
Tap the “Pair a Device” link on the home screen and enter the code it provides one one of your paired computers.
Once it’s paired, you can tap the “Tabs From Your Other Computers” option to see open tabs, bookmarks and history entries.
Sync Recovery Key
Firefox Sync encrypts your data with a local key, which is stored on your devices and not uploaded to Firefox Sync’s servers. If you lose your key on all devices — for example, by reformatting all paired devices at once — you can’t access your stored data without your recovery key. You’ll have to click the “I Don’t Have the Device With Me” link after clicking “I Have an Account” in the setup process. If you lose your key, you’ll have to reset your data and lose all data stored on the server.
To do this, you’ll want to open the options window, click over to the Sync pane, click the Manage Account menu and select the “My Recovery Key” option.
Save the recovery key to a safe place or print it out for safe keeping.
Troubleshooting Sync
If you encounter problems with Sync, you can use the Reset Sync option in the Manage Account menu.
Use the options here to replace the data on the server with data from specific computers. You could also change your recovery key from the My Recovery Key screen to erase data stored on the server.
Now you’re ready to go — you’ve got your Firefox data with you everywhere. No more recreating the same bookmarks on all your computers or struggling to remember what web pages you were reading on your other computer.
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Chris Hoffman
Chris Hoffman is Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. He’s written about technology for over a decade and was a PCWorld columnist for two years. Chris has written for The New York Times, been interviewed as a technology expert on TV stations like Miami’s NBC 6, and had his work covered by news outlets like the BBC. Since 2011, Chris has written over 2,000 articles that have been read nearly one billion times—and that’s just here at How-To Geek.
Read Full Bio »
A Firefox Account lets you sync your data and preferences (such as your bookmarks, history, passwords, open tabs and installed add-ons) across all your devices. It’s free to use.
Table of Contents
You will need a Firefox Account to set up sync. To create an account:
- Click on the menu button to open the menu panel.
- Click the Sign In button next to Sync and save data .
- The Firefox Accounts sign-in page will be open in a new tab.
- Enter your email and click Continue .
- Fill out the form to create an account.
- Take note of the email address and password you used: You’ll need them to sign in.
- Firefox Accounts will send you a confirmation email. Use the verification link or code to confirm your account.
Click your Firefox Account email or display name (you might need to sign in first.)
- Click the Firefox Account icon on the toolbar.
(If you don’t see a Firefox Account icon, click the menu button and click Sign in to Firefox .) - Click Sign in to Firefox .
- Fill out the form to create an account.
- Take note of the email address and password you used: You’ll need them to sign in.
- Firefox Accounts will send you a confirmation email. Use the verification link or code to confirm your account.
- Click the Firefox Account icon to expand the menu.
- Click Sync Now .
A device could be a mobile device (such as a smartphone or tablet), a desktop computer, or another Firefox profile. For more on mobile devices, see:
- Android phones and tablets: Sync bookmarks, tabs, history and passwords on Android
- iPads, iPhones and iPod touch devices: Sync bookmarks, logins and browsing history on Firefox for iOS
To connect another desktop computer or profile, just sign in and let Firefox Sync do the rest. To sign in, you’ll need the email address and password you used in the previous section.
- Open Firefox on the computer or profile you want to sync.
- Click the menu button , then click the Sign In button next to Sync and save data .
- If you’re already signed in (see How do I know the status of my sync?) click Sync Now to start syncing immediately.
- Open Firefox on the computer or profile you want to sync.
- Click the Firefox Account icon on the toolbar.
- Click Sign in to Firefox .
- If you’re already signed in (see How do I know the status of my sync?) click Sync Settings to choose what to sync or Sync Now to start syncing immediately.
For additional information, see Disable Firefox Sync.
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I'm having problems with my Firefox Account
Need help with Firefox Accounts? This article has some solutions to help you get started. If you don’t find an answer here, you can also get.
Mozilla will add an option in Firefox 60 that will let users disable and hide the Firefox Sync option in the Firefox settings panel.
Firefox Sync is a Firefox feature that lets users synchronize and backup browsing details to a Firefox account, such as open tabs, installed add-ons, browsing history, browser preferences, bookmarks, and saved credentials. The feature is similar to Chrome’s Sync feature.
Firefox Sync was initially released as Mozilla Weave as a Firefox add-on for Firefox 3.0. Mozilla embedded Weave into Firefox starting with Firefox 4.0, and rebranded the feature Firefox Sync with the release of Firefox 29.
While some users hate the feature, there are also many who find it incredibly useful, and Mozilla has no intention of removing the feature anytime soon from the main Firefox distribution.
New about:config option added in Firefox 60
But with Firefox 60, Mozilla engineers have decided to add a configuration option in the “about:config” panel that allows users to disable and hide the Firefox Sync UI from the Firefox user interface.
To disable and hide Firefox Sync, users should type about:config in their URL bar, press Enter, search for identity.fxaccounts.enabled and double click this option.
This option to disable and hide Firefox Sync is already included with Firefox Nightly. The stable version of Firefox 60 is scheduled for release in early May 2018.
Option added part of the Tor Uplift project
The option was added at the request of Tor Browser developers as part of the Tor Uplift project, an initiative to bolster the Firefox codebase with some of the Tor Browser’s unique privacy-focused features.
The Tor Browser is based on Firefox and they wanted a simple way to hide the Firefox Sync UI [1, 2], so their users wouldn’t accidentally enable this feature and have personal details such as searchers and browsing history synced to a remote Firefox account.
This is the fourth major feature that lands in Firefox as part of the Tor Uplift project. The first three were:
Upcoming Tor Uplift plans include adding support for Firefox for blocking sites from fingerprinting users via VP8/VP9 codecs, and support for preventing Firefox from loading user details (username, emails, real names) into the browser’s memory. Many other Tor Browser-based privacy enhancing features are also in the work.
Bookmarks play a small but important role in making it easier for us to quickly access frequently visited websites. However, it’s a challenge to manage, especially if you have different browsers installed. If you work with both Firefox and Chrome, an extension/add-on called EverSync does a superb job of syncing bookmarks between the two browsers.
First, you’ll need to install EverSync for Firefox and Chrome.
Once installed, you’ll need to register for an EverSync account. You can do this by clicking on either of the EverSync buttons found along the top menu bars of the browser.
In Chrome, the button drops down and provides you with a Login or Register button.
In Firefox, click on Sync Bookmarks and a dialog box opens with a Login and Register buttons.
You only need to register using one browser, and you don’t have to do it for both. Registration requires only your email address and a password. Registration allows EverSync to store your data in their servers, so your bookmarks are stored in the cloud and safely backed up.
Syncing Bookmarks in Firefox
In your Firefox browser, click on the Sync icon again. In the drop down, click on Sync Bookmarks.
A dialog box will open. There are three ways you can do to start syncing bookmarks: Merge, Upload and Download. If this is the first time you’re going to use EverSync, then merging server and computer data is the best option.
This setting is chosen just once, and will become the default action the next time you sync bookmarks. If you want to change the sync method, you can always go back to this page and change it accordingly.
Syncing Bookmarks in Chrome
Chrome has its own bookmark syncing feature, and this has to be disabled for EverSync to work. To do this, go to “Settings -> Advanced Sync Settings”. Change the drop down from “Sync Everything” to “Choose what to sync”. Uncheck Bookmarks from the list below. Click OK.
You are now ready to enable EverSync. Click on the Sync icon and click Start Synchronization.
A similar menu should open and prompt you to select from Merge, Upload or Download. To make syncing between Chrome and Firefox work without losing data, be sure to always choose Merge.
As a precaution, EverSync automatically backs up your bookmarks and saves it in its server even if you haven’t done so. The number of bookmarks saved is indicated on the bottom of the sync settings dialog box. If, at any time, your bookmarks disappear, go to this page and click Restore bookmarks.
Remember that uploading and downloading options will overwrite what you’ve already saved in the server. If you upload your current bookmarks, it will erase all previous ones you’ve synced and retain only the ones you have at the time of upload. The same goes with downloading.
Once you have sync settings set up in both browsers, you should be able to see your bookmarks in either browser. When you add a new bookmark in Chrome, it should automatically appear in Firefox too. If not, you may need to refresh the bookmark page, or click on the EverSync icon.
Kim is a freelance tech writer who loves to explore mobile and web applications.Visit her blog, Kim The Writer, where she gives freelance writing advice.
5 comments
Awesome!! Thank you.
Great share.this will definately come handy
Why not use Xmarks? Is this one better than xmarks?
This tip is no good. There are far easier ways to copy your bookmarks between chrome and firefox. Both browsers offer you an option to export and import bookmarks from an html file, so all you have to do to synchronize between them is export your bookmarks from one browser into an html file, then import that html file into the other browser.
This way you don’t end up sharing your bookmarks with some corporation. If you check the terms of service I’m sure you’ll find that any data you upload to an online service no longer belongs to you. Your uploaded data now belongs to the corporation and they can do with it what they want, sell it, share it with other corporations or government agencies, etc…
I suggest you keep your data private. Don’t upload your personal data to online services. They are not intending to do you any favors. They are in business to make money so you can be sure they have a plan on how to use your data in some way that benefits them.
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Sign in to Firefox Accounts on Firefox for Android to sync your bookmarks, history, logins and open tabs across devices.
Table of Contents
Option 1: Pair your mobile browser with Firefox desktop
To sync your bookmarks, history, logins and open tabs with Firefox Sync using an existing Firefox Account and QR code:
Tap the menu button.
Option 2: Log in with credentials
To sync your bookmarks, history, logins and open tabs with Firefox Sync by simply signing into your existing Firefox Account:
Tap the menu button.
If you do not have an existing Firefox Account, tap Create an account to create one. For additional information, see Access Mozilla Services with a Firefox Account.
Tap the menu button.
- Bookmarks
- History
- Logins
- Open Tabs
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Browser syncing as it should be: secure, anonymous and free!
Download xBrowserSync now and start taking back control of your data!
Secure
Your data is encrypted and decrypted on your device. No one but you can read it.
Anonymous
No sign up required and no personal data is collected. Just install and sync.
There are no charges for using xBrowserSync and you’ll never see a single ad. Ever.
xBrowserSync is a free and open-source alternative to browser syncing tools offered by companies like Google, Firefox, Opera and others. The project was born out of a concern for the over-reliance on services provided by big tech, who collect as much personal data as they can and have demonstrated that they do not respect their user’s privacy. Now, with the proliferation of open-source code and projects it’s easier than ever to create tools and services that allow users to take back control of their data!
xBrowserSync respects your privacy and gives you complete anonymity. No sign up is required and no personal data is ever collected. To start syncing simply download xBrowserSync for your desktop browser or mobile platform, enter an encryption password and click Create New Sync! You’ll receive an anonymous sync ID which identifies your data and can be used to access your data on other browsers and devices.
xBrowserSync does not only sync but also enhances your productivity by enriching your native browser bookmarks with the addition of descriptions and tags, and an intuitive search interface enables you to find, modify and share bookmarks quickly and easily. xBrowserSync even adds descriptions and tags to new bookmarks for you automatically. And don’t ever worry about losing your data thanks to the included back up and restore functionality.
The xBrowserSync desktop browser web extension syncs your browser data between desktop browsers. It works with the browser’s native bookmarking features so you can keep using the native tools whilst always staying in sync. If you like to organise your bookmarks into folders don’t worry, xBrowserSync respects your bookmark hierarchy and syncs it across your browsers.
Get the xBrowserSync mobile app for your Android mobile device. Search through your synced bookmarks just as you would using the web extension, except adding new bookmarks is as easy as sharing from your favourite apps (browsers, YouTube, Spotify and many other apps that share URLs).
Choose from a growing list of public xBrowserSync services to sync to, or run your very own xBrowserSync service for syncing in complete privacy. The xBrowserSync team runs the official xBrowserSync service which is the default service that xBrowserSync uses, but anyone can run their own service and take complete control of their data.
The number of xBrowserSync users are growing every day and the code base is active and being constantly improved. The current roadmap is to support all major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Edge), and sync open tabs and history as well as bookmarks. If you would like to contribute to the development of xBrowserSync to help deliver functionality sooner, read more on how you can get involved.
Today we are going to show you how you can use Firefox Sync to save all your browser data like bookmarks, history, tabs, etc. to the cloud and sync them across all the devices where you use Firefox. Using Firefox Sync we can sync all our data to a Firefox account which can be connected to all the devices and synced back.
So let’s see how we can set up and use Firefox Sync.
Setting up Initial Sync
1. Open Firefox options from the Firefox menu and navigate to the Sync Tab.
2. If you are setting up Firefox Sync for the first time, click on the option Set up Firefox Sync and proceed to Create a New Account.
3. In the next Window, sign up for Firefox account using your email address and finish the set up. Firefox will then create your account and start the sync process. Firefox will ask you to check the data you want to sync to the clouds which will then be synced to all the paired devices.
That was how you can create Firefox account and do initial pairing. Let us now see how we can pair additional devices to your Firefox account to sync the settings.
Pairing Device
1. Later when you are looking forward to pair a device to your computer, let’s say an Android, open the Firefox sync option on the device and select the option, Pair up the device.
2. When you initiate the pairing process, the device will generate set of unique keys.
3. You should now open your Firefox account where you have made the master sync and open the Sync option. In sync option click on the link Pair a Device.
4. Firefox will now ask you to provide the keys that the device generates, and once you give in the correct key the device all the data will be synced instantly.
Conclusion
You can connect as many devices as you like to your Firefox account to seamlessly sync all your settings. If you are a Firefox fan, I am sure you are going to love this feature.
Firefox Sync is a great tool, but up to now, there was no easy way to interact with it programmatically, or a command line interface to access the data it holds (like bookmarks, history, or Lockwise passwords).
Using Node Firefox Sync, this CLI gives you access to all the endpoints and objects exposed by the Firefox Sync API.
It features two ways to authenticate, one using a Firefox Accounts email and password to open a session, and one using OAuth. See more about them below.
Installation
The command will be available as ffs . .
Usage
A typical flow will look like this:
During authentication, this will create
/.ffs-creds.json to store the credentials necessary to access Firefox Sync.
Further commands read credentials from this file to use that session to query the API.
Authentication
Email and password
This opens a session with full access to the given Firefox Account in order to get the credentials to access Firefox Sync.
By design, this means this program will have to access to your plaintext password. It doesn’t store it, and just forwards it to fxa-js-client which handles the actual authentication.
OAuth
You’re given a OAuth URL to open in your browser, where you can input your password in Mozilla’s own website, which will in turn grant access to this program by redirecting to a URL that includes an authentication code.
With this method, the program never gets access to the plaintext password, on top of being granted a token with restricted permissions.
That said there’s currently no way to request access to specific Firefox Sync collections meaning that this grant will have access to all the native Firefox Sync collections.
Because this program doesn’t have its own OAuth client ID, it uses the public client ID from the Lockwise Android app.
This means that we don’t control the OAuth redirect URL, and can’t set it to a temporary server on some random localhost port, which would allow seamless authentication of this CLI. To work around that, the CLI will kindly ask you to open the OAuth URL in Firefox, which it knows how to poll for "visited places" by querying places.sqlite in the profile directory. It will be able to detect the Android app redirect URL to extract the OAuth code and complete the authentication process.
In case this doesn’t work (it’s clearly a hack, let’s face it), consider falling back to password authentication!
See also
Node Firefox Sync, the underlying client library that powers the CLI.
The story on how this all started when I tried to access my Lockwise passwords from the CLI:
Gnome’s browser (called Web) is an excellent little open-source browser that ships as the default browser of choice for Gnome Shell. It’s very quick and slimmed down compared to a lot of other modern web browsers available in the mainstream for Linux users (like Google Chrome, Firefox, Vivaldi, etc.). Web has quite a few useful features, all of which are listed here. By far one of the best features it has is the ability for Web to access Firefox Sync data, allowing users to keep data in Web and the Firefox browser in sync.
Setting up Firefox sync in Web is a pretty straightforward process. To sync with your account, start by opening up the browser. You can launch it by pressing Win and searching for “Web.”
Note: don’t already have the Gnome Web browser set up on your Linux PC. Don’t worry! Just head over to this page here to learn how to get Gnome Web working on your Linux system.
Access sync settings for Web
Once Gnome Web is open, you’ll see a page that says “Welcome to Web.” Don’t worry about the start page for now. Open up the settings menu. The settings menu is located next to the minimize button in the right-hand section of the window.
Inside of the Gnome Web settings menu, you’ll need to make your way to the “preferences” option, and select it to access Web’s browser preferences.
In the “preferences” window that pops up, there are several different options to choose from. Look through these different choices for “Sync” and click it with the mouse to access the syncing settings for the Gnome Web browser on your Linux PC.
In the syncing settings, you’ll see a page that says “Firefox Sync,” Followed by “Sign in with your Firefox sync account to sync your data with Web and Firefox on other computers.” Using the UI, enter both your email and password for the account that you use to sign in to the Mozilla Firefox sync system.
Note: syncing bookmarks with Firefox Sync on Gnome Web requires a Firefox account. If you do not already have a Firefox account, click here to create one.
After entering your account details, click the blue “Sign in” button to log into the system. Once the button is clicked, a message on the screen that says “Confirm this sign-in” will show up. Log into your email account to confirm that Web can have access to your Firefox sync data.
Syncing options
Signing into Firefox Sync in Gnome Web will not automatically download all of your data. By default, nothing will happen. Instead, you must manually choose the options you want to sync. These options are “Bookmarks,” “Passwords,” “History,” and “Open Tabs.”
Bookmark sync
To sync your Firefox bookmarks with Gnome Web, check the “Bookmarks” box, followed by the “Sync Now” button.
Password sync
To sync your Firefox Passwords with Gnome Web, select the “Passwords” box, followed by the “Sync Now” button.
History sync
To sync browser history with Gnome Web, choose the “History” box, then select “Sync Now.”
Tab sync
To sync your tabs between Firefox and Gnome Web, select the “tabs” box, and select the “Sync Now” button.
Access your Firefox data in Web
Accessing Firefox data within Gnome Web is very simple, due to Gnome Web’s simple user interface. If you want to access any of the data you’ve synced, follow the instructions below.
Bookmarks
To get to the Firefox bookmarks synced to Gnome Web, look for the “Ribbon” button and select it with the mouse. After clicking the “Ribbon” button, a pop-up menu will appear, containing all of your browser bookmarks, including Firefox ones.
Passwords
Need to gain access to Firefox passwords synced with Gnome Web? Here’s how to do it. First, open up the settings menu next to the minimize button. Then, click on the “Preferences” button to access Web’s browser settings.
Inside of the “Preferences” area, find “Stored Data.” In “Stored Data,” find “Passwords” and click on “Manage Passwords” to view passwords synced by Firefox, and others.
History/Tabs
Synced Firefox browser history and tabs can be accessed in Gnome Web by pressing Ctrl + H on the keyboard. Alternatively, browser history is accessible by clicking the settings menu, followed by “History.”
Import bookmarks from other browsers to Gnome Web
Not a Firefox user? Still, want to add import browser bookmarks into the Gnome Web browser? Here’s how to do it. First, open up the “Web” settings menu. From there, find the “Import Bookmarks” button and select it to import an HTML bookmark list into Web manually.
Once the bookmarks are imported, they’ll be accessible in Web’s bookmarks area, which you can quickly access by clicking on the “Ribbon” button.
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