Importing Opera Profile folder has no effect
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cris2d2 last edited by
Yesterday I backed up all the contents of Opera Stable profile folder, using the path from Help/About Opera C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable, thinking to restore this folder content when I'll reinstall Opera on freshly reset Windows 10 PC.
Today, after I reinstalled Opera, I went to Profile folder, deleted the newly created content and copied previously saved content, just to notice it had no effect - no addons, no settings, no bookmarks, no speed dials were imported like in the old profile. It's like Opera doesn't give a d..mn about the extra files and folders present in that Profile Folder.
Can somebody confirm this method is no longer working?
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burnout426 Volunteer last edited by
It should have worked for some things like bookmarks and speed dials. For some other things (extensions and passwords etc.) that won't work because they're protected based on the login of the old Windows account for the old install of Windows.
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mellofellow last edited by
@cris2d2 I have had the same issue when trying to restore opera post crash -no effect of local profile loading. Same windows install.
In fact post crash (which have become very frequent), Opera never reloads old tabs, sessions etc. This is install & machine independent (I have 4).
The only thing that works is when I have a cloud session running which I access with another browser, then manually copy tabs opened and manually open in the faulty browser. It is a pain and in itself, this solution reveals another flaw (luckily) in that the cloud session has a lag in catching up with the crash.
I'm at the point where I am considering abandoning opera.
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cris2d2 last edited by
@mellofellow So, what could be the best way to migrate complete Opera & its stuff to another computer or to a new Windows installation?
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mellofellow last edited by
@cris2d2 The easiest most reliable way is still labour intensive. but here's what i did.
For each set of sessions, bookmarks or open tabs, I opened up all the links in opera, then visited my opera synched data in my opera account. I copied all that was there, an pasted into my email. that preserved all the links.
Then in FF, I logged into my email and simply opened each link by clicking. I installed a few add ons such as session managers, tab groupers and was able to save "sessions" etc.
You could also accomplish the same by saving files as html or scraping with python but I found this to be pretty fast.
I had a few hundred tabs.
You can export bookmarks directly I believe as html then import in FF. Passwords are a separate tougher issue.
I think you can go into opera and reveal each one. There used to be a really cool opera password tool to batch do this.
I took this as an opportunity to reset all my passwords anyhow! -
cris2d2 last edited by
@mellofellow thanks for the complete guide.
I have dials, bookmarks and passwords synced with my credentials (and encrypted). These are easily recoverable by logging in. I don't care about open tabs.
The struggle i have is about Opera settings, extensions and extensions settings.I tried to replace all the files and subfolders in new Opera installation Profile folder with old Opera profile files and subfolders. As soon as the new Opera started, I looked in Extensions subfolder and saw all those long names subfolders just disappearing. New Opera just deletes what it isn't created in the new profile.
So, I found no possibility to recover old Opera settings, extensions and extensions settings, like in other browsers.
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mellofellow last edited by
@cris2d2 Oh I misunderstood! I didn't realize you were going from opera to opera. Here's what I did in the past for extensions.
If you navigate to the right folder, for me:
it was something like C:/users/mellofellow/appdata/local/...
but you can look it up in Opera:about or using the menusFind the extensions folder and you'll see a bunch of subfolders with long letter names like: jckjxzckjxznckjlxznccc
each of those is for a different extension and most are readable using JSON readers (I use sublime text).So, once I have reinstalled the extensions, it is just a matter of reading through the new folders to see which extension is which, then manually writing over the settings with the old ones (again use sublime text).
This worked for me but really isn't worth it unless you have a few extensions with a lot of settings. It is so much faster to just put in the settings anew.
For the opera settings, one workaround may be to do the same via cut and paste. Or you could try going to about:config or opera:config taking screen shots and just updating the new install?
It's a shame, opera was the leader in innovation with tabbed browsing etc. but has since become bloated an removed features unecessarily. After switching to FF, with the same set of tabs open, i went from +4GB Ram usage and hourly freezes to 1GB, fluid browsing.
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cris2d2 last edited by
@mellofellow I have 31 enabled extensions Of course, not all of them are configurable but half of them are. So, you see the struggle.
So, about the Opera settings and extensions, I guess I must follow your suggestions...Too bad.
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mellofellow last edited by
Give it a try, but the problem is sorting out which extension is which. it will of course get much faster as you start getting through them, but here's what I would do:
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go to old extensions, replace the name "kdsjldjfs;jg;lkfdsjg" with "tab sorter" for example, once you browse through to see what it is.
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go to the new extensions, find out which extension is what, but copy the top level sub-folder name e.g. 'hsjgdsfdsdsf' and rename the old extension folder that matches that you renamed already. Once you've gone through half it will be much faster by process of elimination.
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lastly, take all of th enew extension folders, move them elsewhere as back up, then take the old ones and drop them into that new location.
Then you will end up with the old settings etc. for each extension in the new location with the new names. Hopefully some of them will work and correct the naming conventions if needed. For the ones that don't, browse through the sub folders, and rename anything that looks like 'hgdsjhgdsfgf' to the actual new folder name.
I think that will take care of 90% of them.
good luck!
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cris2d2 last edited by
@mellofellow Thanks! I'll try these suggestions, for sure, but when I'll have the time. It seems a lenghty job.
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burnout426 Volunteer last edited by
Because standalone installations are more lax with extension security, and since you can convert a regular profile to a standalone profile, I'd say to do the following:
Download the Opera installer, launch it, click "options", set "install path" to a folder named "Opera Save" on your desktop, set "install for" to "standalone installation", make sure "Import data from default browser" is unchecked, and install. After that Opera launches, close it and delete everything in the "profile/data" folder in the install folder that's on your desktop.
While your normal Opera is closed, copy all the files and folders in its profile folder to the "data" folder for the standalone installation. Then, launch that Opera. Then, close it and launch it again. Close and open a couple more times for good measure.
If your extensions and their settings remain in tact, copy the whole "Opera save" folder to the other computer or new install of Windows and run that Opera a few times. If your extensions are still in tact, download Opera and install it normally. Then, close it. Then, delete all the files and folders in its profile folder. Then, copy all the files and folders in the "Opera Save/profile/data" folder to the regular Opera's profile folder. Then, start the regular Opera and see if you extensions are still in tact.
However, you're past that now as you can run the old profile files in a standalone installation on the old install. But, in the future, you can try the above. No guarantees that it'll work.
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