Where Are All Your Browser Bookmarks Stored?

Reader Maya writes: Is there a specific file, maybe a compressed file, were you can find all your Favorites/Bookmarks from Firefox/Internet Explorer and export them to Excel?

Great question, Maya. It is good to keep tabs on your browser bookmarks/favorites if for no other reason than that you should back them up just like any other data file. Of course, Windows doesn't make this easy, since bookmarks are buried under multiple layers of folders on your hard drive.

First let's tackle the question: Where are those bookmarks, anyway? Internet Explorer (6 or 7) users can find favorites by browsing to C:\Documents and Settings\username\Favorites. Browse here and you'll immediately notice there is not a "favorites.htm" file but rather an individual file for each favorite you have. These are actually shortcuts to those web pages, and you can use them just like you would the Favorites menu in IE.

To turn this mess into a single file you need to export the bookmarks from within IE. This is a simple process: In IE click File > Import and Export... Click Next, then select Export Favorites, click Next twice, then select a convenient place to store your backup file. Click Next then Finish, and your bookmarks will all be rolled up into a single HTML file.

Firefox users can find bookmarks under C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles. Open the folder inside this Profiles folder (you may have more than one if you have multiple Firefox profiles), then find "bookmarks.html" inside. These are your bookmarks all rolled up into one file. You can use this file just like you would the IE file above, but you should make a copy of it before messing with it.

Now that you have an HTML file, you can actually open it in Excel by right-clicking it, selecting "Open With" and choosing Excel from the menu. It won't be gorgeous, but it should let you manipulate the file any way you choose. You can also open this file in a web browser directly to get a single-page view of all the bookmarks on your PC.

Hope that helps!