Transferring cookies from FF2 to FF3

I just installed FF3, and now I'm trying to get it to respond to sites more or less the way FF2 did. I have both FF2 and FF3 installed, because I'm not removing FF2 until I get FF3 to work just as conveniently.

I finally managed to get my "Bookmark Toolbar" to look more or less like my Personal Toolbar Folder in FF2 (The two do the same thing,but it's a more complicated transition than from FF1.5 to FF2). I also figured out that to get my passwords transferred, I copied signons2.txt from my old profile to the FF3 profile, and then renamed it signons3.txt.

But how do I transfer all my cookies? In a previous thread, Ramona listed 6 files to copy from the old profile to the new profile, but that's not enough. FF3 profile has a file called "cookies.sqlite" which should have the information from the old "cookies.txt ", but how do you transfer it? I don't get much help from the Mozilla site.

 

xelaw,

Unfortunately, you'll have to start from scratch with your cookies. This appears to be another area where Mozilla changed the file structure, which removes the ability to migrate from older Versions of Firefox.

 

Thanks anyway, Ramona.

 

xelaw,

O.K., so I lied! Thanks to a friend, I did more Google searches, and found the solution to not only cookies, but also to passwords... Here's how to transfer those files:


http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox

Note that Firefox 3 uses a new file format for certain profile data e.g., "cookies.sqlite" instead of cookies.txt, and will create files using data contained in files from older Firefox versions, if found, but only if the profile does not contain the new format for that type of file.

If you are copying data to a new profile from a profile used with an older version of Firefox, make sure to delete the corresponding files in the new profile folder e.g., delete the sqlite files from a Firefox 3 profile, so that Firefox can create a file in the new format using the data in the copied file.

Some examples.
Firefox 3:
Passwords: key3.db and signons3.txt (key3.db and signons2.txt)
Exceptions: permissions.sqlite (hostperm.1)
Bookmarks and History: places.sqlite (bookmarks.html and history.dat)
Cookies: cookies.sqlite (cookies.txt)
Saved form data: formhistory.sqlite (formhistory.dat)

I would try this with a test profile before editing your existing profile.

 

I think it worked

Thank you again, Ramona. You have helped me again.

Actually, the bookmarks and passwords were not the problem: you can use Bookmarks>Organize Bookmarks>Import and Backup>Import HTML>C:\...Bookmarks.html (from your old profile) to import your old bookmarks. As I said before, after copying Signons2.txt from the old profile into the new profile and renaming it Signons3.txt, the passwords had worked (I didn't do anything with Key3.db). By the way, I had copied everything in my Extensions folder in the old profile to the new one, and all my add-ons seem to be working correctly.

I had copied the old cookies.txt into the new profile, and after reading your post, I closed FF3, renamed cookies.sqlite to cookies.bak, and restarted FF3. From the number of cookies I now see in Tools>Options>Privacy>Show Cookies it looks like they were all transferred to FF3, especially since I identify a number of them as sites I haven't visited yet using FF3. I can't be sure until I've used FF3 for a couple of months at which point I'll delete FF2.

I don't care about my history, and don't use permissions or formhistory, so those items didn't bother me.

 

As long as FF2.x is installed in a different folder, and you don't try to use the same profile as FF3.0, it does not matter when 2.x is uninstalled (not deleted).