How To - Auto backup of favorites ?

Good morning all,

Edge / Sync did not do a good job and messed up. So I lost a few hundred of my favorites (my backup was a few months old)

Is there a tool / script / bat available that would backup my favorites regularly and save it without overwriting the older backups ?

Thanks

I don't have Windows 11, but use the free Genie Timeline in 10. It doesn't overwrite, but adds the new changed files as .1,.2, etc. It doesn't show as for 11, but suspect it will work


A Guy

I've never had Edge fail to sync for me...yet. Edge stores bookmarks here C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\Bookmarks.

I would think an automatic backup could be handled in 2 ways. Google Drive can sync by folder name so that would be one option. Another would be to use a backup program that can backup files/folders on a schedule. I do not use it myself but I believe Easeus ToDo is supposed to do it. Automatically Backup a Folder to A Network Drive

Thanks Guy. Can it copy to a cloud folder as well ? Like a onedrive folder ?

Thanks Glass. This with the favorites happens about every year to me.

Syncing with Google Drive ? But that means it is synchronised, so I still do not have a backup. Or am I misunderstanding you ?

Using a backup programm seems shooting an ant with a cannon. Perhaps a bat file can do the trick. Will ask google to look into it

I guess I'm the one not understanding your exact problem. Backups and syncing are 2 entirely different things. A backup has to be restored whereas syncing can mirror a system folder and the cloud. To my way of thinking, if you have issues with Edge syncing favorites, I would be trying to figure out why you have the problem in order to better make a decision how to handle it. It probably has something to do with Edge at times not correctly logging into your MS account on one device or another.

If you are making regular images of your system, the favorites stored in appdata are also being backed up within the image and can be restored from that image simply by mounting the image and copying the file back into appdata. Whereas, with selective syncing on googledrive, the synced folder will be updated in googledrive each time you make a change on any computer as long as you have set up that same folder to sync on all your systems and have set the options in googledrive settings to have the folder on both your computer and the cloud. (see screenshot)

If I was going to let googledrive handle favorites sync, I would probably turn off sync within Edge itself to avoid conflict. However, doing so would also turn off the syncing of your open tabs from one device to another so if your open tabs are important to you, it might not work for you.

I think the key thing in your case is why Edge is not working like it is supposed to and continues to lose your favorites.

See also
How to Backup and Restore Everything in Microsoft Edge - TenForumsTutorials
I cannot see any reason for it not to apply to Windows 11 as well.


Denis

So automatic sync has failed you, so you want an automatic backup? I have tried that twice and never ever.
Manual backup is 100% bulletproof, automatic anything can fail and take both the original and the backup.
Sure, automatic backup is fine, but once in a while, simply use copy/paste, lets say to USB or another cloud.

GeneralLee01 said:

Syncing with Google Drive ? But that means it is synchronised, so I still do not have a backup.

Click to expand...

Cloud backups contain file versioning, so you can restore a previous file version, if the file was not removed.

For the record, favorites are located in this file, not sure about collections, since I do not use them.

Thanks guys. How about using "power automate". Would that be a suitable tool for the job ?

Create a directory where you want your back up to reside, ex: BookBack

just put that in a batch file or run the command directly when you feel like it.

copy "%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\Bookmarks" C:\BookBack\Bookmarks