Deleted Profile accidentally Is there a way to restore or have i lost everything and need to start all over

Hi I accidentally deleted my profie and lost all my bookmarks and browsing history and rewards. Is there a way of restoring my profile back or is it gone forever. any help will be appreciated. thanks


Description of the issue:
How can this issue be reproduced?

Expected result:

Brave Version( check About Brave):

Additional Information:

If you deleted it in the Profile Manager, there may be hope. If you deleted the folder in Finder or Terminal, then unless you have a backup of your drive, you’re likely out of luck, though you could try an undelete/file recovery tool if it’s important enough to retrieve.

The profile folder is stored in /Users/[YourUserName]/Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/ and usually is named Default. If it was a profile you created, then it will be named Profile [#] where the [#] is 1, 2, etc., depending on how many are created. If you’re using Brave again, then it may have created/be using a new Default folder.

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  1. The first thing I’d do is make a copy of the one you want to use with File–>Duplicate (cmd-D) Screen Shot 2020-05-28 at 4.46.11 PM or by dragging it onto the Desktop or over a folder and holding Option. If you’re not sure which one to do, copy Default and all Profile [#]s to be sure. Leave that Finder window open because you’re going to need it soon.

  2. Now that you have a backup, go to Brave and create a new profile by selecting Create a New Profile in the Brave menu in top right of window or with the Profile menu just to the left of the Brave menu (click + Add in pull-down). If the Profile menu isn’t there, don’t sweat it; I’m pretty sure it only shows up if there’s more than one Profile to begin with.

    or Screen Shot 2020-05-28 at 4.35.44 PM
    Not sure if the name will be retained, but can’t hurt to name it as if it were going to be permanent, just in case. When you click Add in the Add profile window, it will take you to a brand spankin’ new Brave window with the tour queued up.

  3. Quit Brave and go back to the Brave-Browser folder. Look for the just-added Profile [#] folder. In the case of the one I just created, it’s Profile 5:
    Screen Shot 2020-05-28 at 4.48.48 PM

  4. Open that new Profile folder, then in a new Finder window (cmd-N while in Finder) navigate to the backup copy(ies) you made earlier.

  5. Open the backup Profile copy you want to use, select all contents, drag them to the fresh Profile folder window holding Option, and let go to copy. When prompted, tell Finder to overwrite the files in the destination.

  6. Once the copy is done, leave both Finder windows open, launch Brave, and select the target Profile if it doesn’t open by default and see whether your stuff is there. It’s likely you’ll have multiple windows opening, at least one for each Profile, so don’t freak if that happens.

If the backup Profile copy you chose wasn’t the one you wanted, just close Brave, go to the Finder window with the one you already copied, hit cmd-up arrow, pick a different backup Profile copy, make the new Profile window visible by selecting it from the Window menu, and repeat steps 5 and 6 to copying all files into the same new Profile folder.

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For file recovery tools, I took a peek at macupdate.com and found a few promising ones, but none free. Disk Drill is free to scan, but you have to pay for a license ($90) to actually recover anything.

MajorGeeks has a good list of tools: https://mac.majorgeeks.com/mg/sortname/data_recovery.html

The only really free tool I found is not Catalina-compatible ( Lazesoft Mac Data Recovery), but if you’re running 10.14 or earlier, it might do the trick. I tried running it in a virtual Mac running 10.14 but no matter what permissions I granted the software or Parallels, the tool kept saying it couldn’t find a hard drive, so that appears to be a no-go.

Update: It turns out there’s another Catalina-compatible free recovery tool, but it’s Terminal-based and is a homebrew port. That said, if you’re not afraid of Terminal and can follow pretty simple instructions, installation is no big deal.

Update 2: For macOS, TestDisk is only for partition recovery. If you’re interested in it for that, then here’s the info:

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Thanks so much Hnktong. This seems to have solved my issue. I got my bookmarks and history back. Thanks once agin.

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Awesome! I’m glad it worked!

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