If you’ve been using a computer to browse the Internet for a while you’ve probably accumulated several browser bookmarks (aka favorites) that take you to a favorite web page with a single click.
For example, there are about 30 pages that I visit on a regular basis and I have them all bookmarked in my favorite web browsers.
Not all pages are bookmarked in every browser however because some pages simply look and respond better in one particular browser.
I also tend to change computers fairly often, and if I had to re-bookmark all those pages every time it would be a major hassle and a serious time waster.
But as luck would have it, all the major web browsers make it easy to transfer your bookmarks from one computer to another.
All you have to do is “export” the bookmarks from the browser(s) on your old computer and then “import” them into the browser(s) on the new one.
The actual steps for exporting and importing bookmarks vary from browser to browser. Below you’ll find step-by-step instructions for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
Google Chrome…
To export bookmarks from Google Chrome on the old computer:
1 – Insert a USB flash drive into one of your computer’s open USB ports.
2 – Click the Customize and control icon (that’s the icon located in the top-right corner of the Chrome window right below the “X” you click to close the window).
3 – Click Bookmarks>Bookmark manager.
4 – Click the icon on the far right-hand side of the blue bar, then select Export bookmarks. You should now see a “Save file” dialog box on the screen.
5 – Choose a name for the file that will be storing your bookmarks, then navigate to the USB flash drive you’ll be saving the file to.
6 – Click the Save button.
To import your saved bookmarks into Chrome on the new computer:
1 – Insert the USB flash drive containing the exported bookmarks file into one of your new computer’s open USB ports.
2 – Click the Customize and control icon (that’s the icon located in the top-right corner of the Chrome window right below the “X” you click to close the window).
3 – Click Bookmarks>Import bookmarks and settings.
4 – Click the down arrow on the second line and select Bookmarks HTML File.
5 – Click the Choose File button, then navigate to the USB flash drive that contains the exported bookmarks file.
6 – Select the file you wish to import your bookmarks from.
7 – Click the Open button and follow the prompts from there.
That’s all there is to exporting and importing bookmarks in Google Chrome.
Mozilla Firefox…
To export bookmarks from Mozilla Firefox on the old computer:
1 -Insert a USB flash drive into one of your computer’s open USB ports.
2 – Click the History and Bookmarks icon (it looks like four vertical lines with the last line leaning slightly to the left).
3 – Click Bookmarks.
4 – Click Show All Bookmarks.
5 – Click Import and Backup>Export Bookmarks to HTML.
6 – Choose a name for the file that will be storing your bookmarks, then navigate to the USB flash drive you’ll be saving the file to.
7 – Click the Save button.
To import your saved bookmarks into Firefox on the new computer:
1 -Insert the USB flash drive containing the exported bookmarks file into one of your new computer’s open USB ports.
2 – Click the History and Bookmarks icon (it looks like four vertical lines with the last line leaning slightly to the left).
3 – Click Bookmarks.
4 – Click Show All Bookmarks.
5 – Click Import and Backup>Import Bookmarks from HTML.
6 – Choose a name for the file that will be storing your bookmarks, then navigate to the USB flash drive you’ll be saving the file to.
7 – Click the Open button and follow the prompts from there.
That’s all there is to exporting and importing bookmarks in Mozilla Firefox.
Bottom line: You don’t have to re-enter all of your browser bookmarks when you switch to a new computer. You can simply follow the instructions above to copy them from the old computer to the new one!
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