Import from Firefox not available

[mauro-balades]

What feature would you like to see?

I supposed import from Firefox would be available, but it's not. Why?

What platform are you seeing the problem on?

Linux

Additional context

Linux AppImage.

~ Created automatically from issue: #221

[RafaelLinux]

Totally agree. There is no need to have

I don't have a Firefox account to synchronise, because I don't need it (I don't use the same bookmarks at work as I do at home or on my smartphone) and I don't want it either, so I still don't understand how it's possible that I can't import from Firefox but I can from other browsers.

[Arctomachine]

Normal browser import carries over existing sessions. It is seamless transition. Once done, user can continue using it without additional steps.
Firefox account only applies to bookmarks and plugins (which it enables by default even if they were disabled in old browser). User have to manually log into each site (even with password manager it is long and tedious process) before using browser normally. So while sync is good feature on its own, it is not replacement for import.

[ZombieLurker]

Not working for me either. Tried with Flatpak and Appimage in Arch Linux.

[RafaelLinux]

It's not that it doesn't work for you, my friend, it's that it's not implemented!!!

[kittybwained]

yeah, this was pretty odd to me when i installed zen
it wasn't a big deal cause i could just export my passwords to CSV and my bookmarks to HTML and then import those, but it was a little annoying

[AurelienConte]

I'm bumping this discussion too since a lot of us are coming from firefox to try zen and are not using firefox sync for privacy reasons.

[Franz1241]

I have 3 different profiles and only my personal profile has a Mozilla account.

I would like to just copy and paste the .mozilla into .zen and have it working.

How can we approach this?

[CroaBeast]

bumping, need this feature

[Juts2]

Also requesting this feature.

[tobozo]

Hi Zen team,

I downloaded the linux/zipped version and canceled the first run at this exact step, I'm subscribing to this discussion and will just wait until this is implemented to give it a try.

Thanks for promoting browser diversity! 😍

[Xerxes004]

Hey all, I have a workaround that might work for you depending on how much you hate Edge and Chrome.

I got around this issue by first syncing my Firefox profile data with Edge (signed out!), closing Edge, restarting Zen, then importing from Edge into Zen.

No online sync required.

Hope this helps!

CC: #221

[RafaelLinux]

Of the last few months, yours is the best post of the many forums I visit, because it is not only very useful, but also makes a very funny use of irony. I think it's a very good temporary solution.

If you don't mind, I'd like to add that to make everyone happy with the temporary solution without feeling bad about using ‘evil’ applications, they could use Chromium instead of the ones you mention. It should work anyway.

THANKS FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION

[londek]

Hey,
I found a workaround without Edge to import (most if not all) data from Firefox to Zen.

Locate your Firefox profile directory

1. Open Firefox
2. Open hamburger menu
3. ->Help
4. ->More Troubleshooting Information
5. In Application Basics table locate "Profile Folder" and open it.

Locate your Zen profile directory
-> Repeat all steps as for Firefox, but in Zen

Actually migrate:

1. Close both Zen and Firefox.
2. In Firefox profile directory select all files (ctrl+a)
3. NOW IMPORTANT PART: locate file "compatibility.ini" and deselect it (ctrl+left click on it).
4. Paste all files to Zen profile. If prompted make sure to overwrite the files. There might be .lock file that can't be overwritten, feel free to skip it.
5. Open Zen, it will behave as when during fresh start.
6. After that everything should be imported correctly ;3

If you are signed out of services, you are probably missing cookies.
Copy cookies.sqlite from Firefox profile into Zen profile.

[Zlendy]

Worked like a charm, thanks!

[abe-101]

just note that if you install it via flathub
the data location in settings isn't correct and its instead located in
~/.var/app/app.zen_browser.zen/.zen/mrhrlfpn.Default (release)

[Ultrate]

for this part "Open Firefox
Open hamburger menu
->Help
->More Troubleshooting Information" you can just type "about:support" on the search bar and it will take you there thanks for your explanation by the way

[FifthWit]

tried that, it just weirly ended up reverting my user.js on normal firefox and while the bookmarks and cookies are correct nothing loads

[kortschak]

Did this and it worked almost perfectly. The only issue was that treatment of context menu styling where the text is rendered with low contrast (I'm guessing this is because firefox was rendering them with dark mode despite having light mode set 🤷). Can someone point me to the file that holds the colour styling for context menus?

[WandersonAlves]

I just watched some videos about Zen browser and thought "hmm, I could replace firefox with zen!". It's frustrating to see that I can't, It's more frustrating to know that Zen is built on top of Firefox...

[Juts2]

Looks like it has firefox sync, so you can sign in through the settings menu now and sync your firefox settings that way.

[wolfkin]

works like gangbusters. still would love a manual import but since I do use Firefox sync that'll be perfect for me at least.

[sharp2448]

bumping, I'm also missing this feature.

[Arctomachine]

Recently I found that firefox uses profiles that can be used for migration between different versions. You can access it by going to about:profiles in url bar.
When launching browser with selected profile, it carries over everything: history, opened tabs, addons with all settings, cookies and sessions, everything.

As expected, directly using firefox profiles in zen is impossible. But that is what could potentially be used to make migration easier. Dev team, what do you think about using it?

[Anoms12]

Logging in to your Firefox/Mozilla account will do everything you need it too

[Arctomachine]

If it really did, half of people here would already have used it by now.

[tiropictor]

This is one most odd fail I could imagine. The browser, based on Firefox cannot import ANYTHING from Firefox. Yes, I don't have FF account/cloud/sync whatever they call it, nor I ever planned to create that. Browser is kinda software to show webpages, it's not another goddamn cursed account-driven app that want all your data and password.. And I use Mac OS, so, obviously windows-based workarounds (using Edge? Seriously? just to import bookmarks?) doesn't fit me. Most funny is that FF is not even in "Import Browser Data" list. I think I need to wait a little while devs realize that problem actually exists..

[tiropictor]

follow-up: this solution worked for me perfectly:
#881 (comment)
all opened windows, tabs, all extension, all sessions - everything just landed to Zen Browser as I EXPECT IT TO BE DONE.
Is it really that hard to proceed same way while initial setup of Zen Browser?? (question to devs)

[AppearedOne]

I also was really confused about this but ended up using this workaround from the guides section. Though it's insane to me how a Firefox based browser can't do this annoying step automatically.

[chicagobuss]

just want to add my support for this. It's really weird you can import from chromium browsers but not firefox .... on a firefox-based browser! This seems like a critical feature to implement.

[solarkraft]

It's so funny and dumb that Zen can import from Chrome but not from Firefox. Londek's solution seems like it'd be somewhat easy to automate.