How to Recover Chrome Bookmarks After Reinstallation

Written By Russell Mickler

Helping a client the other day, I was forced to uninstall Google Chrome from a Windows 11 computer.

After rebooting, I reinstalled Chrome but tragically learned that the user hadn’t used a Google account to sync her bookmarks and settings. Hundreds of bookmarks were potentially lost.

After closing Chrome, I accessed the shadow volume and recovered the %appdata%\local\google\chrome\user data\default directory from the last snapshot (roughly an hour earlier).

In that recovered folder was a JSON file named Bookmarks. I copied it out and added it to the live folder, overwriting the existing version, and restarted Chrome.

All of her bookmarks were restored. The user was relieved!

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Russell Mickler

Russell Mickler is a computer consultant in Vancouver, WA, who helps small businesses use technology better.

https://www.micklerandassociates.com/about
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