How to Restore Your Chrome Bookmarks on Windows & Mac
Have you ever accidentally deleted an important bookmark from your Chrome browser? Don’t worry, there’s hope! This article will help you find ways to restore your deleted bookmarks in Chrome, as well as how to prevent bookmark loss in the future.
Table of contents
How to restore bookmarks in Chrome on windows
Fix 1: Check your browsing history
If you just deleted a bookmark, you can quickly press ctrl + Z in Bookmark Manager to undo the change. Or you can check your browsing history to find deleted bookmarks.
To view your Chrome browsing history, open Chrome, then click More (the three dots icon) > History > History. Or you can press Ctrl + H on your keyboard to open Chrome history.
If you’ve deleted your Chrome browser history, you can also use My Activity to access it.
- Open Chrome. Then type my google activity in the search bar and press Enter.
- Click Welcome to My Activity.
- At the top, use the search bar and filters to find deleted bookmarks.
Once you locate the link to the sites you bookmarked, you can add it to your bookmarks again.
Fix 2: Use Bookmarks.bak file
Chrome automatically backs up your bookmarks to a local file each time you launch Chrome. So when you accidentally delete important bookmarks, you may still have a chance to bring them back. To restore your bookmarks follow these instructions.
- Close all open Chrome windows. If Chrome is already closed, leave it closed.
- On your keyboard, press Windows + E to open File Explorer.
- In the address bar, type or paste the following path and press Enter. Don’t forget to replace the UserName with the name of your Windows user account.
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data
- Type bookmarks in the search bar and press Enter. You’ll see a list of files named Bookmarks and Bookmarks.bak. The Bookmarks file is the default file currently used by Chrome while Bookmarks.bak is the most recent backup which was taken when you last opened your browser.
- Rename the Bookmarks file to Bookmarks.old and rename Bookmarks.bak to Bookmarks.
- Relaunch Chrome, you’ll see your deleted bookmarks. Note that any bookmarks you’ve created since the last time you launched Chrome will be lost.
This method only works if your local Bookmarks.bak file hasn’t been moved or deleted. If this file no longer exists, consider using a data recovery tool to recover deleted bookmarks.
Fix 3: Use a data recovery tool
If the saved Bookmarks file has been deleted on your PC, then you can try using a data recovery tool to get your bookmarks back.
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is an efficient and safe data recovery software. It can recover deleted, formatted, inaccessible data from your local devices for different data loss situations, including the local bookmarks backup files.
- Download and install EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard.
- Run EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. Select the drive where the deleted files were stored and click Scan. The software will then scan the drive to find deleted files.
- Once the scan is completed, you can double-click the file to preview it. Then select files you want to restore and click Recover to save files at a new location.
After recovering the bookmark backup file, you can copy the file to the local folder on your PC and reopen chrome to see if the deleted bookmarks are there.
Fix 4: Use DNS cache
If you happen to lose important bookmarks after a browser update, you can try using DNS cache to find lost bookmarks. Here’s how to do it:
- On your keyboard, press Windows + R to invoke the Run box. Then type cmd and click OK.
- At the command prompt, type
ipconfig /displaydns
and press Enter. This command will list all your internet history, not just your browser.
From there, you may be able to find your deleted bookmarks.
How to restore bookmarks in Chrome on Mac
Time Machine is the built-in backup feature of Mac. If you’ve accidentally deleted Chrome bookmarks on Mac, you can use Time Machine to get your bookmarks back.
- On Mac, open the Finder app.
- Go to Macintosh HD > Users > Your user name > Library > Application Support > Google > Chrome > Default.
- Expand Default folder and you’ll see Bookmarks and Bookmarks.bak files.
- Move Bookmarks file to a different location and rename Bookmark.bak to Bookmarks.
- Close Finder and relaunch Chrome.
Bonus tip: Back up your Chrome bookmarks
To avoid losing bookmarks again, it would be a wise choice to back up your Chrome bookmarks into another hard drive regularly. Here’s how to back up your Chrome bookmarks.
- Open Chrome.
- At the top right, click the three dots icon. Then select Bookmarks > Bookmark manager.
- Click Organize (the three dots icon) > Export Bookmarks.
- Navigate to the location you would like to store the backup, name the file and click Save.
Chrome will export your bookmarks as an HTML file. If needed, you can use this file to restore your bookmarks in the future.
So there you have it — 4 easy ways to restore your deleted bookmarks in Chrome. Hopefully, this post helped. If you’ve any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave us a comment below.