How To Backup And Restore Your Firefox Passwords

Firefox has a built in password manager that helps you store usernames and passwords for the sites you need to login and use. Once the username/passwords are saved by the password manager, you can visit these sites and login without having to remember the login details.

If you came across an issue with your computer causing it not to start properly and you're afraid that Firefox would crash due to the repeated restarts and sure it enough it did. But before it did crash, you might want to make a backup of the passwords list so that you can use it when you reinstall Firefox.

Backing up the passwords:

1. First, download the Password Exporter Firefox Extension.
2. Install the add-on the usual way.
3. Go to Tools -> Options -> Security and click on Import/Export Passwords to get the window below.


4. Now click on the Export Passwords button. Select a location and name for the file to be saved.
5. You can save the passwords in the XML (eXtended Markup Language) or the CSV (Comma Separated Values) format.
6. You can also choose to encrypt the passwords and usernames in the exported file. But the encryption is crackable if somebody else accesses the file and imports the passwords.
7. Thus, you have successfully backed up your passwords.

Restoring the passwords:

1. Ensure that the the computer to where you are exporting the passwords has Firefox with the Password Exporter extension installed.
2. Go to Tools -> Options -> Security and click on Import/Export Passwords.


3. Click on the Import Passwords button.
4. Choose the file (xml or csv) where you have stored the passwords and click OK.
5. Your passwords will automatically be imported into Firefox.
6. Not only that, it will automatically be entered into login forms into the websites without you having to prompt it.

The current version of Password Exporter is 1.1 and supports Firefox from 2.0 to 3.5 version.