Free Chrome Bookmarks Recovery Tool

This free Chrome bookmarks recovery tool turns Chrome’s own backup file, Bookmarks.bak, into a normal bookmarks.html file you can import back into Chrome. Close Chrome, copy Bookmarks.bak out of your profile folder, drop it on the tool above, and download the result. It runs entirely in your browser, shows you what the backup contains before you restore anything, and can export only the bookmarks you are missing so nothing gets duplicated or overwritten.

What does this free Chrome bookmarks recovery tool do?

The tool reads Chrome’s profile bookmark files and gives you back something Chrome can import. Chrome has no “restore from backup” button, and the backup it keeps is a raw JSON file with no extension, so most people never find a way to use it.

When you drop a file, the tool:

• Detects the format by content, not file name. It reads Chrome’s Bookmarks and Bookmarks.bak JSON, the same files from Edge, Brave, Opera and Vivaldi, a Firefox JSON backup, and any bookmarks.html export.
• Shows a summary: total bookmarks and folders, the oldest and newest date added, and how many links sit in the Bookmarks bar, Other bookmarks and Mobile bookmarks.
• Lets you search and browse the backup’s folder tree, so you can confirm the bookmark you lost is actually in this file before you import it.
• Builds a bookmarks.html in the standard Netscape bookmark format that Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari all import.
• Compares two files. Add your current Bookmarks file and it exports only the bookmarks that exist in the backup but not in your current set. That is the safe way to restore bookmarks Chrome lost without touching the ones you have now.
• Salvages damaged files. If a crash left Bookmarks cut off halfway, it pulls every complete bookmark entry it can still read into a single folder.

What are Chrome’s Bookmarks and Bookmarks.bak files?

Bookmarks is the file where Chrome stores every bookmark in a profile, and Bookmarks.bak is the single automatic backup Chrome keeps of it. Both are plain-text JSON files with no extension, sitting side by side in the profile folder.

Inside, the JSON has a roots object with three top-level folders: bookmark_bar (the Bookmarks bar), other (Other bookmarks) and synced (Mobile bookmarks). Each bookmark is an entry with "type": "url", a name, a url and a date_added value stored as microseconds since January 1, 1601. That odd epoch is why a raw Bookmarks file looks unreadable, and why this tool converts dates for you.

When does Chrome update the Bookmarks bak file?

Chrome refreshes the Bookmarks bak file (Bookmarks.bak) once per browser session. In current Chromium source code, the backup is made the first time Chrome schedules a save of your bookmarks after it starts: it copies the existing Bookmarks file to Bookmarks.bak, then writes the new state to Bookmarks. The logic is in Chromium’s bookmark_storage.cc.

In practice this means:

• If you deleted bookmarks in the session that is still running, Bookmarks.bak very likely still has them, because it was taken before that session’s first change.
• If you deleted bookmarks, closed Chrome, reopened it, and Chrome then saved any bookmark change (adding one, moving one, a sync update, even opening a bookmark, which updates its last-used time), the backup was refreshed from a file that no longer had them.

That is the whole reason timing matters so much with Chrome bookmarks backup recovery.

What about AccountBookmarks?

Newer Chrome versions can also keep a separate AccountBookmarks file (and AccountBookmarks.bak) for bookmarks saved to your Google Account when you are signed in to Chrome without full sync. If your lost bookmarks were account bookmarks, look for that file in the same folder and drop it into the tool the same way.

Where is the Chrome bookmarks backup stored?

The Chrome bookmarks backup lives in your profile folder, next to the Bookmarks file. As of September 2026, these are the default locations:

Second and later profiles use Profile 1, Profile 2 and so on instead of Default. The folder number doesn’t always match the order you created profiles in. The reliable way to find the right one is to open chrome://version in the profile that lost bookmarks and read the Profile Path line.

On Windows, if you can see Bookmarks but not Bookmarks.bak, the extension is probably hidden: in File Explorer choose View → Show → File name extensions. In the tool’s file picker, you may need to switch the file type filter to “All files”, because both files have no extension Windows recognizes.

Where do Edge, Brave, Opera and Vivaldi keep their Bookmarks.bak?

Every Chromium-based browser uses the same two files in a different folder.

Note that Opera uses the roaming %APPDATA% folder on Windows, not %LOCALAPPDATA%. Edge users used to have a built-in Restore deleted favorites option, but Microsoft removed it in Edge 128 in August 2024, so Bookmarks.bak is now the main local fallback in Edge too.

Why must you copy Bookmarks.bak before reopening Chrome?

Because the next Chrome session can overwrite it: once Chrome saves a bookmark change in a new session, your deleted bookmarks are gone from both files.

Do this, in this order, the moment you notice bookmarks are missing:

1. Quit Chrome completely. On Windows, close every window and check the system tray, because Chrome can keep running in the background (Settings → System → “Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed”). On a Mac, press Cmd+Q; closing windows is not enough.
2. Open the profile folder from the table above.
3. Copy both Bookmarks.bak and Bookmarks to your desktop or a USB stick. Copy, don’t move.
4. Only then reopen Chrome, and drop the copied Bookmarks.bak on this tool.

If other people use the same computer, or the browser is set to reopen on login, do step 1 fast. Every minute Chrome runs is another chance for it to save.

How to recover deleted bookmarks: every method, fastest first

The right method depends on how long ago the bookmarks disappeared and whether sync is on. Start at the top and stop at the first one that works. People searching “recover deleted bookmarks Chrome” often skip straight to complicated fixes when the first option would have worked.

1. Undo in the Bookmark manager

If you deleted bookmarks from the Bookmark manager (chrome://bookmarks, or Ctrl+Shift+O / Cmd+Option+B) and that tab is still open, press Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on a Mac). Chrome also shows a short-lived Undo button after a delete. It only works within the same manager session.

2. Use Bookmarks.bak with this tool

If undo is no longer possible, this is the main method. Copy Bookmarks.bak as described above, drop it on the tool, search the preview to confirm your bookmarks are inside, and download bookmarks.html. Then import it: in the Bookmark manager click the ⋮ menu → Import bookmarks, or from the main menu choose ⋮ → Bookmarks and lists → Import bookmarks and settings and pick “Bookmarks HTML File”. Google’s own steps are in Import Chrome bookmarks & settings.

According to Google, imported bookmarks go to the Bookmarks bar if you have none, or into a new folder labeled “Imported” if you already have some. With the tool’s “Put everything in one Recovered folder” option on, you get one clearly dated folder instead, which you can then sort through and drag into place.

3. Check another device before it syncs

If Chrome Sync is on, the deletion spreads to every signed-in device the next time each one connects. A laptop that has been off, asleep or offline since the deletion may still have the bookmarks. Disconnect it from the network first (turn off Wi-Fi), then open Chrome, open the Bookmark manager and choose ⋮ → Export bookmarks. Or, with Chrome closed, copy its Bookmarks file and drop it here.

4. Restore an older copy from a system backup

If Bookmarks.bak has already been overwritten, a backup of the profile folder from before the deletion is the next best source. See the File History and Time Machine section below.

5. Use an old bookmarks.html export

Any bookmarks.html you exported in the past, from Chrome or another browser, still contains the bookmarks it had then. Drop it into the tool with your current file in the compare box, and you get only the bookmarks you no longer have.

6. Google Takeout

Google Takeout can export the bookmarks stored in your synced Google Account. It won’t bring back bookmarks sync already deleted, but it helps when the account still has them and your computer doesn’t, for example after a local profile got reset.

How to restore bookmarks Chrome lost without overwriting your current ones

The safest way is to import only what is missing, rather than swapping files. Import in Chrome only adds bookmarks, so it can’t destroy anything, and the compare feature keeps it from adding duplicates.

1. Drop the old Bookmarks.bak (or old export) in the first box.
2. With Chrome closed, copy your current Bookmarks file and drop it in the second box, or export your current bookmarks to HTML and drop that.
3. The tool lists every bookmark present in the backup but absent from your current set. It compares normalized URLs, so http:// vs https://, www., a trailing slash, #fragments and tracking parameters like utm_source don’t count as differences.
4. Click Download only missing bookmarks and import that file. It arrives as one dated “Restored bookmarks” folder that keeps the original folder structure inside.

Why not just rename Bookmarks.bak to Bookmarks?

The classic manual method is: close Chrome, rename Bookmarks to Bookmarks.old, rename Bookmarks.bak to Bookmarks, reopen Chrome. It works, but it has three drawbacks:

• It replaces your whole bookmark set with the backup, so anything you added after the backup was taken disappears.
• With sync on, Chrome reconciles the swapped file against your account, and the result isn’t always what you expect. - You can’t see what the backup contains until after you’ve swapped.

Converting the backup to HTML and importing it avoids all three. If you prefer the rename method anyway, keep untouched copies of both original files first.

Can you restore deleted bookmarks in Chrome after sync removed them?

Only if a copy exists somewhere sync hasn’t reached. Chrome Sync is a replication system: it mirrors deletions exactly as it does additions. Google does not keep a history of your bookmarks that you or Google support can roll back to. Google’s Sign in to Chrome help page covers how signing in syncs bookmarks across devices.

So when people ask how to restore deleted bookmarks Chrome synced away, the realistic places to look are:

What does chrome://sync-internals show?

chrome://sync-internals is a diagnostics page. Its type counts can tell you whether your account currently holds bookmarks, which is useful when a computer shows none but your phone still does. It has no restore or history feature, so it can’t bring back anything sync has deleted.

Restoring from Windows File History or Time Machine

A system backup of the profile folder from before the loss can give you an older Bookmarks or Bookmarks.bak even after Chrome overwrote both. Always restore to a different folder, never over the live profile, and then drop the restored file on this tool.

Windows: File History and Previous Versions

In File Explorer, go to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\, right-click the Default (or Profile N) folder, choose Properties, and open the Previous Versions tab. If Windows has restore points or File History copies for that folder, they are listed by date. Pick one from before the deletion, click Open, and copy Bookmarks and Bookmarks.bak out of it.

Be aware that File History’s default folders don’t always include AppData, and many PCs have System Protection off, so this list is often empty. Third-party backup software that images the whole drive is more likely to have the file.

Mac: Time Machine

Time Machine backs up ~/Library along with the rest of your home folder, so older copies of Chrome’s profile files are usually there. In Finder, press Cmd+Shift+G and go to ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default, then open Time Machine from the menu bar or Spotlight. Step back to a date before the deletion, select Bookmarks and Bookmarks.bak, and restore. Apple’s steps are in Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac.

Time Machine restores items to their original location, so quit Chrome first and choose to keep both files if asked.

How to get my bookmarks back on Chrome after a crash, update or reset?

Most “all my bookmarks vanished” moments are not deletions. Chrome is showing a different profile, sync is paused, or the Bookmarks bar is hidden. Check these before you reach for file recovery.

If none of these match, you really did lose them, and the file-based methods on this page apply.

When is Chrome bookmark recovery impossible?

Recovery is impossible when no copy of the bookmarks exists anywhere: Bookmarks.bak was already overwritten, sync has spread the deletion to every device, and there is no system backup or old export. No tool, including this one, can recreate data that isn’t in a file.

You are out of luck if:

• The bookmarks were deleted more than one Chrome session ago on every computer, each of those computers has saved bookmark changes since, and there are no older backups.
• The only device was a phone or a Chromebook, and nothing synced to a desktop.
• The profile folder was deleted (for example by uninstalling Chrome with “Also delete your browsing data”) and there’s no backup of the drive.

File-recovery programs that scan a disk for deleted data occasionally find fragments of an older Bookmarks file, because Chrome writes a new file and replaces the old one rather than editing in place. Results are unpredictable, work poorly on SSDs with TRIM, and should be a last resort. If you try it, search recovered files for the text "roots" and drop any hit onto this tool, since it can salvage partial files.

What is still possible after that point is re-finding the pages. Browser history (chrome://history) and the Wayback Machine can help you track down specific sites you remember.

Free alternatives to this recovery tool, compared

Each free method wins in a different situation.

Where built-in Chrome features are better: undo is faster than anything here when it’s available, and sync is the easiest way to get bookmarks back on a new computer when your account still has them.

Where the manual rename is fine: if you noticed within minutes and have added nothing since, swapping the files is quick and doesn’t need a browser tab.

Where this tool is better: it previews and searches the backup before you commit, never overwrites anything, can hand you only the missing bookmarks, and reads damaged files and other Chromium browsers’ files. Other websites offer Bookmarks.bak converters too; whichever you use, prefer one that runs locally in your browser, because your bookmarks reveal a lot about you.

If you want to explore a recovered export in more detail, the bookmarks HTML viewer opens any bookmarks.html as a searchable tree, and the duplicate bookmark finder cleans up doubles if you imported a full backup on top of your current set. Moving to a new PC instead of recovering? The bookmark transfer tool merges profile files from several browsers into one import.

Troubleshooting the recovery tool

Most problems come down to picking the wrong file or profile.

“That looks like a SQLite database”

You picked a neighbouring file such as History, Favicons or Web Data. Those are databases. Pick the file named exactly Bookmarks or Bookmarks.bak.

“The file contains no bookmarks”

The file is valid but empty, which usually means Chrome already refreshed Bookmarks.bak after the bookmarks were gone, or this profile never had bookmarks. Check other Profile folders and chrome://version.

The file picker won’t show Bookmarks.bak

Set the file type filter to “All files”. On a Mac, the Library folder is hidden in file dialogs; press Cmd+Shift+G inside the dialog and paste the path, or press Cmd+Shift+. to show hidden files.

“Permission denied” or the file won’t copy

Chrome is still running. Quit it fully (on Windows, check the system tray and Task Manager for chrome.exe), then copy again.

The import put bookmarks in an “Imported” folder

That is Chrome’s standard behaviour when you already have bookmarks. Open the Bookmark manager, open the folder, and drag its contents where you want them.

Some bookmarks in the backup don’t open any more

That is link rot, not a recovery problem: the bookmark came back, but the page behind it died. The free rot check gives you a quick health snapshot of your bookmarks, and the Wayback Machine often has a copy of the dead page.

How to keep a Chrome bookmarks backup so this never happens again

A reliable Chrome bookmarks backup is one copy you control that isn’t overwritten every session. Bookmarks.bak is a safety net for the last session only, and sync is a mirror, not a backup. Three habits cover almost everything:

• Export regularly. In the Bookmark manager, ⋮ → Export bookmarks writes a dated bookmarks.html. Keep a few, not just the latest. Our guide to exporting Chrome bookmarks walks through it on every platform.
• Back up the profile folder. Make sure Time Machine or your Windows backup tool includes Chrome’s profile folder, so older Bookmarks files exist when you need them.
• Keep one device as a witness. A second computer that syncs the same account gives you an independent Bookmarks.bak and a chance to catch deletions before they spread.

For the broader picture of sync behaviour and restores, see how to restore bookmarks in Chrome and how bookmark sync works in Chrome. If you’re not sure where your bookmarks went at all, where do I find my bookmarks covers every browser.

Where Bookmend fits after you recover

Bookmend isn’t a backup or undelete tool, so it can’t recover bookmarks you’ve already lost; that is what the tool above is for. What it can do is give the bookmarks you got back a second home, and make them far easier to use.

The bridge is simple: the bookmarks.html this tool produces is exactly the kind of file Bookmend imports. Clean it here, then import it into Bookmend, folders and all, and ask it anything.

Bookmend is an AI-native bookmark manager for Chrome and the web: save it once, ask it anything. It imports a bookmarks.html file from Chrome or any other browser (up to 20,000 bookmarks per import), keeps your folders as collections, and lets you organise with nested collections, tags, notes and favourites. When you save a page, its AI reads it, writes a short summary and suggests tags and a collection, which you can accept, edit or ignore. Ask your library answers plain-language questions from your saved pages, with numbered citations linking back to the bookmarks. Bookmend also keeps the readable text of each saved page, so the content stays available if the site changes, and its link health checks flag dead links and offer the Wayback Machine copy from when the page last worked. You can export your library any time, so you always have a copy you control. See how it works or the full feature list.

It runs as an extension in Chrome and in Chromium browsers that use the Chrome Web Store, such as Brave, Edge, Arc and Opera, with Firefox coming soon, and as a web app at bookmend.app. Your library lives in your Bookmend account, so it’s the same in the extension and the web app. The free plan covers saving, collections, tags, search and import/export; the AI features and link health are Premium, and during early access the AI features are free for every new account, with no card needed.

Written by Nafiul Hasan, Founder, Bookmend. Last updatedSeptember 26, 2026.