1806482 - Import/Export bookmarks to local fileystem

Status: NEW

(Firefox for Android :: Bookmarks, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

From github: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/417.

Why/User Benefit/User Problem

• If a user is using Fenix alone (without synced accounts), there is no backup of bookmarks if a user removes Fefix
• Even if a user is using Sync, without a secondary machine "backing" up bookmarks, bookmarks will be lost if user removes Fenix
• Users don't want to lose bookmarks

What / Requirements

As a user, I would like to be able to export bookmarks to my local filesystem and to later import them.

Acceptance Criteria (how do I know when I’m done?)

• User can export bookmarks
• User can import bookmarks, adding to existing bookmarks
• Ideally, if identical bookmarks are present in the source and destination, bookmarks are merged

┆Issue is synchronized with this Jira Task

Change performed by the Move to Bugzilla add-on.

Comment 1

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Enhancements should have severity N/A.

Comment 2

[Bob G]

given the posts here, https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/417, I wonder whether this has any chance to be implemented, or if I have to change browser

Comment 3

[Bob G]

it must also be stressed that basic functionality cannot require the use of Firefox Sync

Comment 4

[jahway603]

I agree with Bob G that basic functionality cannont require the use of any third-party systems. A simple import/export of bookmarks from/to a plain HTML (like all web browsers have been doing since the 90's) is a required feature request.

Comment 5

[bagu (currently using Mull-Fenix)]

🙋 Also agree with that. Please add this feature like Firefox on desktop has.

Comment 6

[artella.coding]

This is now implemented in Brave Browser for android (I have used it and it is extremely fast at importing large number of bookmarks) :

https://github.com/brave/brave-core/pull/17821

Comment 8

[Daniel Roi]

Now that Open Extensions are finally available, this local import/export feature is the only essential feature I miss compared to other browsers. Please consider implementing it!

Comment 9

[u755776]

Can't believe this is still an issue after that long time and I still cannot export my bookmarks out of this app.

The reason I want to export my bookmarks is to manage them in another browser - bookmark management in Firefox Android is just hell. After years, we are still not able to sort bookmarks, move bookmark by drag gesture, change bookmark location by search destination folder, select multiple bookmarks and change their location or delete them. Even simple thing like collapsing the tree view of bookmarks will help to find destination folder, but nope.

I do not want to get my bookmarks via Mozilla sync service.

Tried to get my bookmarks via ADB, but devs decided to set allowBackup=false in Manifest.xml so ADB is unable to retrieve data.

Tried also to run an self-hosted sync server locally, but sync didn't work, now sync server is being rewritten in rust (syncstorage-rs), but documentation is poor and people still got problems to run it.

Honestly, I'm tired after all of my attempts and the most frustrating thing is that nobody care about what users want (reading years old posts with no solutiom to this date).

Comment 10

[Bob G]

doesn't xBrowserSync work with firefox mobile?

Comment 11

[polycrush]

Hello, I would love the ability to export my bookmarks to the local filesystem. I do not want to use sync.

Comment 12

[Sulev-Madis Silber]

i don't like changes which just middle finger me. ff for android has had several of them. about:config is disabled. it's even disabled for advanced users. i understand it's off by default and granny don't need it. but why me? it's for my own protection? when did it ask it? it's same for bookmarks. it's extremely hard to work around it. everyone keeps repeating like how you need to install it on desktop and need to sync it. as if everyone wants to sync same bookmarks over all their devices they own. what about multiple? do i need separate desktop ff for every one just to have backup? it's as if big enterprise company tells me like, no, you don't get it, you want this, this is goood, please like it, you must like it. for no reason at all? newer androids don't basically give any app data out, not even to it's user, it doesn't survive resets, etc. yet another reason to export it. so i'm protected from myself, or what? and this is from open web standards flagship organization. this is no bug. this is deliberate act. god damnit, if only computers would do what i want. no wonder ff gets forks. it's ridiculous. i highly doubt that this is super hard to implement. yet it's very easy to constantly implement all sorts of changes. so i don't see it abadoned. it's made deliberately made so. i'm not even alone here. people ask it regularly. so if see loads of changes but not this, what on earth is wrong?

Comment 13

[moz20]

metoo.

Comment 14

[Michael Scott]

Bump :)

Would also love to be able to import from local filesystem without needing desktop and sync.

Comment 15

[artella.coding]

Smarterbookmarks and Linkora (Linkora is open source) are android apps which allow you to import and export bookmarks.html

Comment 16

[000]

What dependency on 1970182???

Here is the code to implement, so you literally just have to place it inside Firefox repository, in the right file, an replace "names" =>

#!/usr/bin/bash

DB_PATH=$user/[FirefoxPath]/places.sqlite
FIREFOX_CMD=firefox
SQLITE_CMD=sqlite3
FILE=$user/bookmarks.html

# Get rows from database
rows=$($SQLITE_CMD "$DB_PATH" 'SELECT moz_bookmarks.title, moz_places.url FROM moz_bookmarks INNER JOIN moz_places WHERE moz_bookmarks.fk = moz_places.id;')

# Create bookmarks html file
cat > "$FILE" << EOF
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Bookmarks from places.sqlite</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Bookmarks</h1>
    <table>
EOF

# Add bookmarks from database to file
oldIFS=$IFS
IFS=$'\n'
for row in $rows; do
	# Assuming delimeter is '|'...
	title=$(echo "$row" | awk -F '|' '{print $1}')
	url=$(echo "$row" | awk -F '|' '{print $NF}')

	printf "      <tr><td><a href='%s'>%s</a></td></tr>\n" "$url" "$title" >> "$FILE"
done
IFS=$oldIFS

# End html file correctly for completeness
cat >> "$FILE" << EOF
    </table>
  </body>
</html>
EOF

$FIREFOX_CMD "$FILE" >/dev/null 2>&1 &

Comment 18

[000]

(In reply to artella.coding from comment #15)

Smarterbookmarks and Linkora (Linkora is open source) are android apps which allow you to import and export bookmarks.html

This is plain wrong, those tools require that you place bookmarks inside the app, one by one, and if you have more then 10.000 bookmarks, that's just unfeasible.

Please check any proposed solution, BEFORE posting them here.
And to those who might ask, YES, I have tried those, and you can't just select 10.000 bookmarks and paste/open them in those apps. It's not working that way, and so Firefox is still missing this essential feature.

To anyone working for Mozilla, please try and implement the proposed solution, and tweak it to fit Firefox for Android:
(In reply to 000 from comment #16)

What dependency on 1970182???

Here is the code to implement, so you literally just have to place it inside Firefox repository, in the right file, an replace "names" =>

#!/usr/bin/bash

DB_PATH=$user/[FirefoxPath]/places.sqlite
FIREFOX_CMD=firefox
SQLITE_CMD=sqlite3
FILE=$user/bookmarks.html

# Get rows from database
rows=$($SQLITE_CMD "$DB_PATH" 'SELECT moz_bookmarks.title, moz_places.url FROM moz_bookmarks INNER JOIN moz_places WHERE moz_bookmarks.fk = moz_places.id;')

# Create bookmarks html file
cat > "$FILE" << EOF
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Bookmarks from places.sqlite</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Bookmarks</h1>
    <table>
EOF

# Add bookmarks from database to file
oldIFS=$IFS
IFS=$'\n'
for row in $rows; do
	# Assuming delimeter is '|'...
	title=$(echo "$row" | awk -F '|' '{print $1}')
	url=$(echo "$row" | awk -F '|' '{print $NF}')

	printf "      <tr><td><a href='%s'>%s</a></td></tr>\n" "$url" "$title" >> "$FILE"
done
IFS=$oldIFS

# End html file correctly for completeness
cat >> "$FILE" << EOF
    </table>
  </body>
</html>
EOF

$FIREFOX_CMD "$FILE" >/dev/null 2>&1 &

After so long, how can it be that no-one has been assigned to this?

Comment 19

[Sulev-Madis Silber]

yeah, i also have ~10k bookmarks. i kind of extend my history that way. i don't like things that jail me. android already "jails" my data. ff has removed about:config and has no export for "my own good" apparently. i don't need sync, i want just have copy of bookmarks ffs. i don't need to twoway sync 10 bookmarks via mozilla to my 6 phones. it's built wrong way. mozilla carries this open web and mail torch. what is this? not every function should be granny compatible. it's as if bookmark export is gone on purpose. somehow forks don't add it either. strange sync extensions have difficult backends. and moz own one is huge beast to set up. and for what? just to store title and url for 10k bookmarks, nothing for todays sqlite db, transmission and computing power. what happened with sane backends. what happened with world? god forbid for having backups. everything must be using some cloud or other weirdness? in fact why don't you give me option to store places to external storage. i think that could get corrupted syncs but. whole android actually lacks proper backups. termux + rsync is like godsend, but only for some. it doesn't need to let every app access stuff. just let me have it. it's fun how mozilla and google have more permissions on my data on my own damn device than i have. many open android, or closed, apps, allow backups, export, or import. or saving some or all data to external. or perhaps even sd. to counter this. what's fun, ff once was more open on android. but i heard they closed it down so people won't ruin mozilla product running on their devices? the reason why this bug hangs and hang and hangs is that isn't it. what the purpose of all this? you protect my bookmarks from me even when i don't ask this? this is ridiculous! ff team clearly has all the time to implement this and other things, like missing proper home bookmarks opening page. don't go the chrome way. make it nice to use. for god's sake how many years people have asked for backup? what the living devil causes you to behave like this. many others have added backup feature without anyone asking. those are often single person projects without high wage ceos or offices. yet they for some weird reason end up making better decisions. how come? mozilla only makes few things. i can't believe making data backups is so low priority in there. since the new android ui came out j have been waiting. it was ok before. it's often said that you need to use your own code to get it right. has anyone ever use ff on phone daily? i do. i bet any dev type of person would be so pissed if (s)he does. each time i see new ff coming out i see changes. but i'm like. great, but what about this? what about that thing where address bar moved bottom then back up by default? imagine if you have put this effort, which i bet was receiving pushback, into backup methods? what's all that procrastination? if you really need, just hide it up. who needs, can do this. this is serious issue nowadays. everything gets dumbed down and advanced modes get removed. i also put ff into my mothers phone. she never ever needs about:config ever in her life. does that mean nobody needs? i simply don't get this. at all. i'm not saying change defaults. let defaults be average. just give me my control back damn ffs. btw, dumbing down things makes people lose interest in engineering. but who makes new fancy things? an engineer! how to get new engineers? you make them interested in stuff. i bet you get it! what's next? can i still pee on my own? aren't everyone worried that i break my junk? no? so how would i break my browser then. if question is in that. so yeah, bring proper bookmark managing back

Comment 20

[Sulev-Madis Silber]

wait, i was reading https://github.com/Rob--W/firefox-android-backup-restore and if i understand it correctly mozilla has used open source code to take my data away from me. this makes me extremely pissed. i didn't know it's as simple as running a shell script there. if that's correct, just give me the shell access? actually whole android does this