Favorites: Backing Them Up

[baker7]

This is My first submission to the tutorial Area of Besttechie. It is my hope that it will be included in the BT Knowledgebase ~Brian

HOWTO: BACKING UP FAVORITES in IE 6

submitted by Baker7

How many of you have favorites that you want to keep? This question is important if you are considering upgrading to Internet Explorer 7.0. This question is also important if you are considering upgrading your operating system, or if you are going to backup your Favorites. This Tutorial will help you to do this.

FIRST STEP: ORGANIZE FAVORITES

In order to backup your favoites so you know what they are and where they are, you should consider going through them to determine whether the links are still accurate and available. If they are, you can keep them in your Favorites. If not, you can delete them, and save yourself the trouble of backing up dead links.

To organize your favorites, I recommend that when you go through them - Then that you make folders to make it easier to group them.

To do this:

1. Double click "My Computer"

2. Double Click "C Drive"

3. Double Click "Documents and Settings"

4. Double Click on your username folder

5. Double Click the Favorites folder

6. Create your Folders by right Clicking in the Favorites Window, choose New>folder and then name your folders. Make as many as you believe that you will need to organize your favorites. A good way to do this is to group like favorites in specific folders. For Example, all of my favorites that deal with Tech Support issues are in a "Support" folder."

7. Now, simply press on Control and while doing this LEFT Click the Link(s) you want to move to a folder. With all the links selected, RIGHT click on a link, and select "CUT."

8. Now, Open the folder where you want the links to go (double click this folder and allow it to open)

9. From within the folder that you just opened, simply RIGHT click in the folder, and select "Paste." Your links will be pasted in the selected folder.

10. To go back to the links in in the Favorites folder, Left Click on the "BACK" Button.

11. Repeat steps 7-9 for each set of links you want to organize

12. When done, all of your favorites will be in folders. If you have weeded out dead links, then all of them should be live. Then, you can proceed to the next step.

SECOND STEP: BACK UP FAVORITES

1. Double Click on "My Computer"

2. Double Click on your "C: Drive"

3. Double Click on "documents and settings"

4. Double Click on your username folder

5. Find the "Favorites" folder" and double click this folder

6. The Contents of this folder will be displayed.

7. To copy it, simply click "Edit>Select All" and all of your favorites will be selected. Then with all of the favorites files selected, RIGHT CLICK within the Favorites folder and select either CUT or COPY. Cut removes favorites from the favorites folder and places them in the folder that will receive them. Copy makes copies of the favorites without removing them from the favorites folder.

8. Make a New folder for the favoites if you wish - I recommend "favorites_bak" and place it somewhere on your drive OTHER than in your Documents and settings folder. (New>folder) and then type the name.

9. open "favorites_bak and then RIGHT click "Paste" all your favorites should copy to the new folder.

10. Now, you should be able to install IE7, and then find the favorites folder. Simply open "favorites_bak" and COPY the contents back to the Favorites folder in step 5. PASTE the contents there, and it should work. If you wish, you may use a program such as UltraVNC to connect between 2 machines and then use the File Transfer Client to move these favorite to a machine that is used to store your backups.

Edited January 30, 2007 by baker7

[TheTerrorist_75]

I always use the Import/Export Wizard within IE.

File > Import and Export

[shanenin]

I do it similar to Brian's way except I just copy and save the whole favorites folder, then just paste the whole favorites folder in C:\documents and settings\user_name\ in the new machine.

Edited January 30, 2007 by shanenin

[thesidekickcat]

Sultan taught me how to find and save IE favorites a long time ago. Thanks Sultan!!!

And Pete taught me about organizing and renaming stuff. Thanks Pete!!!

After doing all the reorganizing into well named folders even doing folders within folders to help organize things via click organize and then create new folders (naming them as you want) and clicking to move them to desired location and then dragging and dropping various favorites into the new folders. Then checking things out such as renaming site names so they make good sense to you for faster finding later, and if running on Fat32 be sure the characters in name are allowed or rename without characters. Check also for sites that are still good but don't just delete one right away that appears to not display as it may be a temporary site is down thing just make a note to check it out again later.

Oh I also do another step too, do a computer scan with your antivirus/antispyware before backing up anything just to be on safe side.

Then go to Start, Run and then type in Favorites, hit ok. It brings up the favorites page. Go up to the very very top left corner of it to the yellow folder icon next to favorites title name. Right click on the folder, then click on Send To...I send it to My Documents where I rename it with date I am doing backup. Then I do a copy/paste of that folder to one of my flash drives and I alternate flash drives every time I backup so if one fails the other ones will be fairly current within a couple of weeks or so. This way is easy enough to do often enough so as to not chance losing stuff if computer crashes permanently.

Pat

God bless everyone

[Besttechie]

Hi baker7,

While this is a very well formatted and thought out tutorial I'm afraid I can't add it to the BT KB. The reason I'm not adding it is because it makes a very simple task very complex. If you wish to re-write it explaining how to use the Import/Export feature that would be fine. Remember the articles/tutorials don't have to be complex so long as they are easy to read, do what they're supposed to do, and explain whatever they're talking about well.

B

[shanenin]

I have always just manually done it similar to the way Brian mentioned. That way even works on a machine that does not boot. Just for kicks, I tried the import/export tool. It created a file called bookmark.htm. Firefox uses a file called bookmarks.html. Wouldn't it make more sense for IE to use a file called favorites.htm?