Question Getting old Firefox cookies to work with new Firefox version ?

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DarthGizmo

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May 19, 2016
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Hey everyone,

I have my old cookies.sqlite file from a 2015 version of Mozilla Firefox that I want to import into my latest version of Firefox.

According to google, I should be able to do this, even though it is very old.

However, when I dump it into the profiles folder, none of these cookies are showing up on the list when I click Manage Cookies, or hit F12 and go to Storage, I don't see them.

I assume the list of old cookies should be listed somewhere if I successfully did this, maybe I am not putting them in the right place, I am pasting into:

Users/Owner/AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles and them put them into Default where the cookies.sqlite file is.

There are multiple files in that Profile file with the name cookie, maybe some are interferring, I don't know.

If you can help, I would be grateful!
 
I am going to suggest a different approach.

One reason being the need to restore 10 year old cookies to begin with.,...

Likely obsolete and/or may prove risky one way or another.

Do not import the old cookies. Who knows what all might get changed as a result. Most likely you will be implicitly agreeing to many things that you do not want to agree to.

Over time simply go to the currently desired/required websites and reinstate the cookies/cookie configurations as necessary and with what ever limits you currently wish to impose.

Carefullly read the terms etc. beforehand.

Just my thoughts on the matter.
 
Thanks for the thoughts, but I really do have a good reason for needing an old cookie for a certain website, and then I can delete them.

The cookies.sqlite file I'm trying to load is about 2 MB, I'm not sure if it still works, please help me if you can.
 
DarthGizmo said:
Hey everyone,

I have my old cookies.sqlite file from a 2015 version of Mozilla Firefox that I want to import into my latest version of Firefox.

According to google, I should be able to do this, even though it is very old.

However, when I dump it into the profiles folder, none of these cookies are showing up on the list when I click Manage Cookies, or hit F12 and go to Storage, I don't see them.

I assume the list of old cookies should be listed somewhere if I successfully did this, maybe I am not putting them in the right place, I am pasting into:

Users/Owner/AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles and them put them into Default where the cookies.sqlite file is.

There are multiple files in that Profile file with the name cookie, maybe some are interferring, I don't know.

If you can help, I would be grateful!
Click to expand...
I would probably do it this way. Create a vm, download all of the required offline installers from the last 10 years, remove the networking on the VM. Then install the version of firefox that those cookies work with, restore your profile, step through the version updates, and run them one by one, until the system is up to date. Checkpoints \ snapshots are your friend here, that way you can easily roll back in case one of the versions causes an issue. Now you got me thinking, I believe my current firefox profile is like 13 years old. I've had to do some restores and conversions, but there is data that dates back to like 2012, that's kind of crazy.

 
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The cookies.sqlite file is only 2 MB, do you think there is anything in it, could it possibly be empty? Is there a way to check?

Not sure how I install a version of Firefox that old, I don't think those old versions from 2015 are available.
 
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DarthGizmo said:
The cookies.sqlite file is only 2 MB, do you think there is anything in it, could it possibly be empty? Is there a way to check?

Not sure how I install a version of Firefox that old, I don't think those old versions from 2015 are available.
Click to expand...
Individual cookies are trivially small.
2MB could hold a LOT.

But they DO expire.
10+ years old, unlikely the original websites would still recognize them.
 
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Maybe yes, maybe no. The cookie I need might still work.

So are you guys saying if I just got an old enough version of Firefox, it could be compatible?

Again, I don't know how to get a version from 2015, not sure how it works with Windows 11 either.
 
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I am still unsure about the reason for reincarnating old cookies....

Why not simply go to the website and reinstate the cookies?

Premise being that the website continues to exist and that the cookies are (as above) recognizable.

As for and older version (10 years) of Firefox - much has changed. I would not be optimistic with respect to any given version of Windows.

I do all that I can to keep cookies out. And have never encountered the need to go back and recover old cookies.

Are you able to provide more information about the requirement?
 
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DarthGizmo said:
Maybe yes, maybe no. The cookie I need might still work.

So are you guys saying if I just got an old enough version of Firefox, it could be compatible?

Again, I don't know how to get a version from 2015, not sure how it works with Windows 11 either.
Click to expand...
A 10 year old version of FF may have other issues.

What is the need to resurrect these old cookies?
 
I am locked permanently out of my own account on an important website because the website no longer recognizes my device after I had to delete recent cookies.

Recovery methods are outdated and I forgot my own security questions to the website, etc..

I have a computer for about 3 years ago I can get out of storage that might also work, but I thought I'd try these older cookies first.
 
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Yeah, I am locked out of an old Yahoo account that I really need to get back into.

Yahoo customer service won't help me, for silly reasons.

Do you think that if I used my old computer from 5 years ago, it would recognize it as a "recognized device"?
 
I bought a new computer and logged into my Yahoo account and there was no problem, even though it was a new device.

Several months later I deleted my cookies, and then Yahoo no longer recognized me and was forcing verification.

For personal reasons I don't really want to go into, my verification process was flawed with outdated info, and stubborn customer service would not help me. Yahoo customer service is a nightmare, so that will never be the answer unfortunately.

I am wondering, is there any possible way to get this device to be recognized again? They should still recognize my ip, or maybe there is a way to get Yahoo to realize that it is still me logging in.

I need to get back into this specific account, it is kind of important for many reasons.

Any advice?
 
Probably not, unless you had a full backup of the computer that you could restore, and this isn't a networking issue. You screwed yourself. Being able to get yourself back into that account would make the verification feature entirely meaningless and insecure. Support can't help you because a Yahoo account is still an anonymous account, so identifying yourself doesn't have any connection to that account. IP addresses are not identification or verification. Even having a copy of the cookie file to give them would be meaningless.

If you switch accounts in Yahoo (even without logging out and back in) they force you to confirm that your verification details are correct every 2 weeks so I can't imagine any valid reason to have left them outdated.

The only thing I can think of is trying a different browser that you never used before for anything, or resetting your current browser completely, so that it's back to factory fresh state. I don't know what Yahoo uses to determine that it should or shouldn't require verification on a new sign-in, such that you were allowed to log in with the new computer without verification in the first place but now have to do it.
 
If you have a HDD you can always see if you can undelete one of the previous but more recent cookies.sqlite files.

Don't overwrite the entire new cookies.sqlite file with the old one. Use a sqlite file editor utility such as DB Browser or SQLite Studio to only put the entries for Yahoo.com into the new file.

And be sure you are editing the correct Default profile as there's more than one. Look at the timestamp for one that has recently been modified, as that will be the one Firefox is using.
 
BFG-9000 said:
If you have a HDD you can always see if you can undelete one of the previous but more recent cookies.sqlite files.

Don't overwrite the entire new cookies.sqlite file with the old one. Use a sqlite file editor utility such as DB Browser or SQLite Studio to only put the entries for Yahoo.com into the new file.

And be sure you are editing the correct Default profile as there's more than one. Look at the timestamp for one that has recently been modified, as that will be the one Firefox is using.
Click to expand...

I am using Google Chrome, not Firefox. I only used Firefox because I had 15 year old cookies from that browser for Yahoo.

I am told that you can't undelete cookies, but it would be cool if I figured out how to get my Chrome cookies back. Even then they might not work.

It would be nice if Yahoo stopped forcing this verification after a while, but it seems to never expire.
 
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