One of my clients contacted me a few days ago, to indicate that he accidentally cleared his browsing history and saved passwords in Chrome browser, after a prompt that received (from Chrome) to delete these files in order to fix problems with Chrome operation. After that, I remembered that another client, some months ago, asked me to recover some deleted bookmarks, so I decided to write this tutorial on how to recover lost Chrome’s bookmarks, Passwords and settings.
This tutorial contains detailed instructions on how you can restore deleted passwords, form data, bookmarks, history or other settings in Chrome.
How to recover lost – deleted Chrome Data (Settings, Passwords, Bookmarks, etc.)
– If you are signed on Chrome browser with a Google account, you can see your stored passwords at https://passwords.google.com/ and your stored bookmarks at https://www.google.com/bookmarks/
– If you are not signed with a Google account, then you can easily restore the Chrome deleted data to a previous version, by using the you Windows Shadow Copies feature, which stores different backups of Windows System Settings and your files in real time.
Note: Before you continue to recover Chrome’s lost data, using Shadow Copies, you should know that Google Chrome stores all your profile data (bookmarks, passwords, history, extensions, settings) in “User Data” folder at this location on your computer:
- C:Users%USERNAME%AppDataLocalGoogleChromeUser Data
– The AppData folder, is a hidden folder, so you have first to enable the hidden files view (access) it’s contents.
To restore deleted Chrome Settings, Passwords, Form Data, Bookmarks and History in a older version:
Step 1: Enable the Hidden files & folders view.
- Open Windows Control Panel:
- Open Folder Options. (If you don’t see the “Folders Options” item, change the “View by:” (on top right) from ”Category” to “Small Icons”.
- Click the View tab
- Check to enable the Show hidden files, folders, and drives option.
- Click OK.
- Click the View tab
- Open Folder Options. (If you don’t see the “Folders Options” item, change the “View by:” (on top right) from ”Category” to “Small Icons”.
2. Restore the Chrome User Data folder, to a previous version (backup).
1. Close Google Chrome.
2. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to this location:
- C:Users%USERNAME%AppDataLocalGoogleChrome
* Where %USERNAME% = Your Username. (e.g. if your username is “Admin“, then you have to navigate to this path: “C:UsersAdminAppDataLocalGoogleChrome“)
2. Right click at User Data folder and from the menu choose the “Restore previous versions” option. *
* Note: If the “Restore previous versions” option is unavailable, then –unfortunately- the system protection (restore) feature is disabled on your system.
3. Choose and older version of “User Data” folder (before delete) and click Restore. *
* Note: If you don’t see any previous version of the ‘User Data’ folder and the System Protection is enabled on your PC, then follow the instructions on this article to restore the folder.
4. When restore is completed, then open Google Chrome again. Your stored passwords and settings will be back again!
That’s all folks! Did it work for you?
Please leave a comment in the comment section below or even better: like and share this blog post in the social networks to help spread the word about this.
