Restoring Google Chrome Bookmarks from Time Machine

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Restoring Google Chrome Bookmarks from Time Machine

I recently had to a full restore to a clean hard drive from Time Machine, and I'm just discovering that Time Machine doesn't seem to have backed-up the bookmarks file for Chrome? This represents years of research across all aspects of life and business that would be lost. Is this file somewhere that it can be restored?

Looking now in Time Machine in the ultra-simplified system settings in Mac OS 13.6 I don't see any way to set a preference for this data to be backed-up either. Searches of "bookmark" in the finder only reveal a few .html files that relate to Netscape or Earthlink but nothing for Chrome. Same looking in the user Library or Application Support folders related to Google or Chrome. Where is this data saved?

Thanks for any advice to recover this important information.

PLEASE NOTE: The meta data below is listing my Mac & OS incorrectly and I can't seem to edit information. Please see the attached grab for details of this 16" 2019 MacBook Pro running OS 13.6...

MacBook Pro 15″

Posted on Oct 26, 2023 7:52 AM

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Answer 1

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Joseph_DC Author

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Oct 26, 2023 8:43 AM in response to Joseph_DC

I've just been informed by Apple Support that Time Machine DOES NOT SAVE ITEMS IN THE LIBRARY FOLDER like the Chrome "bookmarks.bak" file. And as a hidden folder in the current OS, there is no way to access the Library folder on your back-up drive as written by Time Machine.

SO if you have to restore your hard drive from a Time Machine backup you will find that all of your Chrome bookmarks are gone. Lost forever (apparently). Safari on the other hand uses iCloud to back-up bookmarks.

Moving forward, the only solution would be to manually use the "Option/GO" path to reveal the hidden Library folder in your user directory, navigate to Library > Application Support > Google > Chrome > Default and periodically back-up your bookmarks files yourself. Astonishing that this seems to be true and I'd love to be wrong.

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Answer 2

Joseph_DC Author

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16 points

Oct 26, 2023 8:56 AM in response to Joseph_DC

You can also export and save your Chrome bookmarks directly out of Chrome, manually and then restore them in any Chrome browser install on any device, but of course you'd need to know to do this prior to loosing access to and/or restoring your Mac OS hard drive...

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Restoring Google Chrome Bookmarks from Time Machine

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