Chrome bookmarks disappeared after an update? Where to look

Updated October 28, 2026

Chrome updated or restarted and your bookmarks are gone, or they've gone back to an old set. You're not alone: on Chrome's help forum, 17 people said they have the same question on one thread (Lost all my bookmarks), 21 on another after a Mac update (Chrome updated on my MacBook Air and lost all my history and bookmarks), and 13 on one where Chrome went back to old bookmarks (Google updated and removed current bookmarks & reverted to old bookmarks). Check these in order. Don't add, move or delete bookmarks while you look.

1. Make sure you're in the right profile

Click your profile picture at the top right of Chrome. If more than one profile is listed, open each one and look. Each profile keeps its own history, bookmarks and settings, so the "missing" tabs may be sitting in the profile Chrome didn't open (Google's profiles help). To pick a profile every time Chrome starts, open the same menu, choose Manage Chrome profiles and check Show on startup.

2. Look in every bookmarks folder

Open the Bookmark Manager with Ctrl+Shift+O (Mac: ⌘+Option+B) (Google's shortcut list). Check Bookmarks bar, Other bookmarks and Mobile bookmarks on the left. You can also type @bookmarks in the address bar, press Space, and search for a bookmark you remember (Google's bookmarks help).

3. Check whether the bar is just hidden

Press Ctrl+Shift+B (Mac: ⌘+Shift+B) to show or hide the bookmarks bar (Google's shortcut list). Our guide Chrome bookmarks bar missing or changed? covers the newer setting that shows the bar only on the New Tab page.

4. Signed out? Sign back in

"When you sign out of Chrome, your info is kept safe in your Google Account and removed from the device." (Google's sync help) Sign in to Chrome again with the same account, and bookmarks that were saved in your account come back. If you have bookmarks that were only on this computer, Chrome offers Save x items in Account under your profile picture to put them in your account (Google's sync help).

5. Try Chrome's own backup file, Bookmarks.bak

Chrome keeps your bookmarks in a file named Bookmarks in your profile folder. The first time your bookmarks change after Chrome starts, Chrome copies that file to Bookmarks.bak before writing the change (Chromium's bookmark storage code). So Bookmarks.bak usually holds your bookmarks as they were when Chrome last started. After the next restart and the next change, it's replaced, so be quick.

Quit Chrome completely. On Windows, open ⋮ and choose Exit. On a Mac, press ⌘+Q.
Open your profile folder:
- Windows: press Windows+R, paste %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default and press Enter.
- Mac: in Finder, choose Go, then Go to Folder, and paste ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default.
If you use more than one profile, yours may be Profile 1, Profile 2 and so on. Type chrome://version in Chrome and look at Profile Path (Chromium's user data documentation).
Copy Bookmarks, Bookmarks.bak and, if you see them, any files whose names start with EncryptedBookmarks to your desktop. That's your safety net.
In the profile folder, rename Bookmarks to Bookmarks.old, then rename Bookmarks.bak to Bookmarks. If there's an EncryptedBookmarks2 file, move it out of the folder too (you have a copy on your desktop). Newer Chrome versions can load bookmarks from that encrypted file and fall back to the plain one only when it's missing (Chromium's bookmark settings code). On Windows, if you can't see the .bak ending, turn on file name extensions in File Explorer's View menu.
Start Chrome and check your bookmarks. If they're back, export them right away from the Bookmark Manager's ⋮ menu with Export bookmarks (Google's import and export help). If not, quit Chrome and put your desktop copies back.

Two honest limits. This backup only covers bookmarks stored on this device: Chrome doesn't make a .bak copy of bookmarks kept in your Google Account (Chromium's bookmark storage code). And Google doesn't document this method, so work only from copies.

6. Look for an old export file

Search your computer for bookmarks_ followed by a date, or any .html bookmarks file you saved. To bring one in: ⋮, then Bookmarks and lists, then Import bookmarks and settings, then choose the file (Google's import and export help).

Questions

Will Google restore my bookmarks?

Google's bookmarks help says: "After you delete a bookmark, you can't get it back." (Google's bookmarks help) The places above are where copies may still exist.

Why did Chrome go back to old bookmarks?

Google's help doesn't explain it. If that's what you see, step 5 and step 6 are the places a newer copy may be.

So it never happens again

Chrome keeps only one short-lived backup of your bookmarks. We make Never Lose Tabs, and it backs up your bookmarks as well as your tabs, free:

Snapshots after every change. Within a couple of minutes of a change, it keeps a new snapshot of all your bookmarks on your computer.
An alarm when they suddenly vanish. If a large share of your bookmarks disappears at once, or your bookmarks bar goes empty, it tells you and offers to restore. The snapshot from before the loss is kept.
Restore that never overwrites. Restoring adds a folder named Restored bookmarks, with the snapshot's date, to Other bookmarks. Nothing you have now is changed or removed.
A copy outside Chrome. Snapshots are included in the hourly backup file in Downloads/NeverLoseTabs, and any snapshot can be exported as a bookmarks file any browser can import.

Bookmark backup is optional: turn it on with Back up my bookmarks too, and Chrome asks you to allow access to your bookmarks. It's free forever. It can't bring back bookmarks deleted before you turn it on.

Add to Chrome: free How it works

We make Never Lose Tabs. Chrome is a trademark of Google LLC. Never Lose Tabs is made by Coding Friend LLC and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google.