Cannot find IE favorites in C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Favorites

Acording to this page, my IE favorites are supposed to be stored in C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Favorites. However, they are not there. When I tried to import them into Firefox, nothing got imported either. It looks as though they are stored in some secret location. This is a work laptop in a restrictive organization and I am not an admin.

How can I access my IE favorites for backup and transfer to another browser?

amphibient

Posted 2013-02-28T18:56:19.457

Reputation: 1 613

1You will need to ask your IT Staff where they are located. You can also right click on any Bookmark you have and check the General of the resulting Property Dialog that is where the actual bookmark is located. I am going to guess your checking the wrong profile, I am also not aware, of anyway to change this location. – Ramhound – 2013-02-28T19:27:19.680

Answers

Right click on a favorite in IE, select Properties. In the General tab the location is given.

mpy

Posted 2013-02-28T18:56:19.457

Reputation: 20 866

I want to export ALL favorites in bulk, not one by one – amphibient – 2013-02-28T19:23:51.490

Sure, my idea was that you can determine the folder where ALL favorites are stored with that procedure! Otherwise we can only guess... – mpy – 2013-02-28T19:25:45.313

It shows that favorite FavA is in directory C:\Users\%USERNAME%\FavFolder1 but when I went into C:\Users\%USERNAME%, there was no FavFolder1 subdir – amphibient – 2013-02-28T19:30:38.127

You can try to turn on the display of hidden files (Control Panel -> Folder Options -> View -> Show hidden files) or just copy & paste the path into explorer's adress bar. – mpy – 2013-02-28T19:34:00.550

I have that already but no directory contents are shown – amphibient – 2013-02-28T19:39:02.030

Hm, can you check with dir /a C:\Users\%USERNAME% in a console window if there's something special with the folder (e.g. junction) and is attrib C:\Users\%USERNAME%\FavFolder1 working? – mpy – 2013-02-28T19:44:22.613

did that, desktop.ini is the only hidden item – amphibient – 2013-02-28T19:46:02.710

So, the attrib command does not produce an error?! Can you cd into FavFolder1? – mpy – 2013-02-28T19:48:41.033

Nope. Tried that too. – amphibient – 2013-02-28T19:50:18.880

Sorry, no more ideas :-( Perhaps you should rise a new question and give some more details of your setup. – mpy – 2013-02-28T19:53:05.447

Have you tried to see under

%USERPROFILE%\Favorites

grvpanchal

Posted 2013-02-28T18:56:19.457

Reputation: 748

yes, it is the same as C:\Users\%USERNAME% – amphibient – 2013-02-28T19:23:18.573