Quickpost: Import Firefox bookmarks into Vivaldi

I’ve been regularly using the Vivaldi web-browser (portable version) for some time and am really loving it.

I still run the snapshot builds to stay on the bleeding edge, but have found them very stable.

That said, I still use Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition as my daily web browser.

One challenge I ran into was trying to bring the bookmarks in the Vivaldi browser current (manually synced) with my Firefox bookmarks.

The “best” way should be to simply open Firefox’s Bookmarks Manager (Ctrl+Shift+B), then export your bookmarks as a HTML type file.

Then open Vivialdi’s Bookmarks Manager (Ctrl+B) and import the HTML file.

Only that just doesn’t really work correctly.  I’ve got a ton of bookmarks and all this accomplished was to copy a handful of bookmarks folders from Firefox and not the full set.

I checked the Vivaldi forums and found others who had issues like my experience when they attempted to export their Firefox bookmarks as an HTML file and then import it into Vivialdi; lots of missing bookmarks after the import completed.

I can’t directly use the Vivialdi “Import Firefox” bookmarks option as I use a portable profile location and the current Vivialdi builds dosn’t (yet) allow for browsing to a custom profile path.

So here are two methods I found success with in case you also have this problem.

Method 1

I thought I could be clever and try to use the free version of Transmute to convert the JSON or HTML file I exported from Firefox to another Vivaldi supported import format that would let me pick the file & location to be imported.

1. Use Firefox’s Bookmarks Manager to “backup” your bookmarks as a JSON file to your desktop.
2. Run Transmute and
1. For the Source select the Firefox JSON type from the drop-down list and then select the JSON file you just exported.
2. For the Target select “Opera” type from the drop-down list and then select your desktop as a file location. Name the file something you can remember like “my_exported_bookmarks” it should show an “adr” filetype extension.
3. I unchcked the “Backup collection” option.
4. Hit the Start button and if/when the preview window opens, go ahead and close it.
5. Once export is done close Transmute.
3. Run Vivaldi and
1. To to Tools –> Bookmarks
2. In the Bookmarks tab select “Import”
3. Select From “Opera Bookmarks File”
4. Click the “Choose a FIle” button and browse to your converted file from step 2.2 above.
5. All your bookmarks & any folders should import into a new bookmarks folder in Vivaldi called “Imported”
4. From there just move them out into your main Vivaldi bookmarks folder structure as needed.
5. Success!

Method 2

1. Use Firefox’s Bookmarks Manager to “backup” your bookmarks as a JSON file to your desktop.
2. Download and run Pale Moon - portable! to a location of your choosing.
3. Run Pale Moon.
4. Open up the Pale Moon Bookmarks Manager and select the options to “Restore” your bookmarks.
5. Browse to the location you saved your exported JSON file from step 1.
6. Import the file. When done all your Firefox Bookmarks should appear in Pale Moon.
7. Now (still in Pale Moon Bookmarks “Library” manager window) export your bookmarks from within PaleMoon Portable as an HTML file. I exported mine to my desktop as “bookmarksPM.html”
8. Once done close Pale Moon.
9. Run Vivaldi and
1. To to Tools –> Bookmarks
2. In the Bookmarks tab select “Import”
3. Select From “Bookmarks HTML File”
4. Click the “Choose a FIle” button and browse to your converted file from step 7 above.
5. All your bookmarks & any folders should import into a new bookmarks folder in Vivaldi called “Imported”
10. From there just move them out into your main Vivaldi bookmarks folder structure as needed.
11. Success!

Apparently there is something about the HTML structure created by the newest versions of Firefox that Vivaldi can’t handle. Pale Moon seems to like the JSON structure of Firefox, and seems to use a different HTML format when exporting that Vivaldi does accept.

Be aware that Vivaldi doesn’t seem to support bookmark “separators” in its bookmark structure so if you have those in Firefox they will be lost in Vivaldi.

Cheers!

--Claus Valca