Bookmarks in Firefox 1.x and 2.x were saved in a simple text file that was fully supported by AM-DeadLink. Starting with version 3, Firefox uses a Sqlite database to store bookmarks which is no longer directly supported by AM-DeadLink.
Scott Hughes, a satisfied AM-DeadLink user wrote a guide how to use AM-DeadLink with Firefox 3.x. Here you are:
Guide to check Firefox 3.x bookmarks using AM-Deadlink
(Author: Scott Hughes)
These are “work-around” instructions to check Firefox 3.x bookmarks for dead links using AM-Deadlink since it doesn’t support Firefox’s new bookmarks file format.
You’ll be exporting Firefox’s bookmarks file in HTML format, checking it in AM-Deadlink, and then importing the revised bookmarks file back into Firefox.
You can get AM-Deadlink from here:
http://www.aignes.com/deadlink.htm
Setting up:
First: You might want to create a folder in your Documents directory (Start Menu > Documents) and name it “bookmarks_backup” (or whatever you’d like) to use as a backup and working directory for this process.
Just in case something goes awry, you can first back up your current Firefox bookmarks by copying its “places.sqlite” file and paste it into that “bookmarks_backup” folder you made. The path to that file is given at the end of this guide. Rename that backup file to “places.sqlite_back” or something if you’d like. (To restore it just copy & paste it back into that Firefox directory, replacing the existing one.)
Now: launch Firefox and from the menu bar select “Bookmarks” > “Organize Bookmarks” to open the Bookmarks Library. From its toolbar at the top click “Import and Backup” and select “Export HTML”. In the dialog box that comes up click the “Browse Folders” arrow (on the bottom left) and find the “bookmarks_backup” folder in your Documents directory and save the “bookmarks.html” file in there.
Running the check:
Now: launch AM-Deadlink and in the “Open File” dialog that comes up browse to the “bookmarks_backup” folder in your Documents directory and open that “bookmarks.html” file.
NOTE: there’s a dropdown menu on the top-left of AM-Deadlink’s toolbar to select the web browser of the bookmarks to be checked. It’s immaterial since it’s a seperate, individual HTML file that’s being checked.
Once you have the file loaded click the “green checkmark” button in AM-Deadlink’s toolbar to start checking them. (It doesn’t take too long – check it in about an hour.) Once it’s done you can move all the links that have errors to the top of the list by clicking the blue & white button in the toolbar (mouse over the buttons to see their function if need be).
About the results:
The links with “Error 404 not found” can just be deleted. The one’s with “Error 403 access forbidden” may be dead as well. They can be individually checked by right-clicking on them and selecting “Open with Browser” which opens the page in AM-Deadlink’s internal browser (in split-pane view). The links that come up as “Redirected, OK” may also be defunct, but are just being redirected to a generic page on the website or even just to an advertising “placemarker page”. These can also be individually checked, of course.
Once you’re done removing all the unwanted links save the file by going to the menu bar and selecting “File” > “Save”. (A message will pop up to remind you to close your browser. This isn’t really applicable since you’re just checking a file.) AM-Deadlink will automatically create a backup of the original file, adding a “_bak” to the file extension.
Importing the revised bookmarks back into Firefox:
First: the old bookmarks file in Firefox needs to be cleared out – otherwise the imported bookmarks file will just be added to the existing one. Launch Firefox and from the menu bar select Bookmarks > “Organize Bookmarks” to open the Bookmarks Library again. The default directory tree in the left pane looks like this when it’s empty (ignore the first two entries):
To delete all the bookmarks currently in there click on each of the directories and subdirectories in the left pane and delete the bookmarks and/or folders that appear in the right pane (with the exception of the default directories – just delete their contents, not the directories themselves) Do the “Recently Bookmarked” subdirectory last – otherwise sometimes bookmarks from other folders keep refilling it.
NOTE: you can select a long list in the right pane by selecting the first item and Shift+select on the last item.
Now: to import your revised “bookmarks.html” file click on “Import and Backup” from the Bookmarks Library toolbar and select “Import HTML”. In the “Import Wizard” dialog that comes up select “From an HTML File”, click “Next” and browse to your revised file in your “bookmarks_backup” folder and click “Open”. You may want to move or rearrange them a little.
Finishing up:
There’s a couple more adjustments that probably need to be made for them to show up correctly in Firefox’s Bookmarks Toolbar and the Bookmarks menu. Some of the default directories may have become duplicated, notably “Recent Tags” and “Recently Bookmarked” – one of each can be deleted. Also, the “Bookmarks Toolbar” and the “Unsorted Bookmarks” folders may show up as just regular directories in the list of what was imported. You can cut&paste (or drag&drop) the contents of each of those into their respective default folders and delete the extra empty folders that were imported. Hopefully that should do it!
NOTE: The location of the Firefox bookmarks files are as follows (where “xxxxxxxx” is a series of random letters/numbers):
Vista:
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\places.sqlite
WinXP:
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data \Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\places.sqlite
