I try to restore some profile from my old ssd i was using in my previous PC. I get my file Profile x from D:…AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser and try to simply paste it in my C:…AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser expecting brave will detect a new profile but it’s not working.
Any suggestion to add this profile with all settings to my new brave?
Brave Version( check About Brave): 1.49.132
Thx
I’ve asked essentially the same question in
Hello,
I started replying to @pghbob yesterday, but got pulled away. So I’ll reply to both of you here.
This week, I transferred all my Brave settings and profiles to a brand new laptop. I experienced a few challenges during the process, but eventually got everything moved. Even all the open tabs from the first machine.
The first time I copied the User_Data folder and opened up Brave, it showed all the profiles, but only restored open tabs for the first profile. I closed all the Brave windows and copied all the files again.
That didn’t work, so I thought perhaps Brave was holding on to something in memory. So I rebooted my laptop and made sure not to start Brave up.
I renamed the User_Data folder and copied the entire User_Data folder into place, before starting Brave.
That finally worked.
I realize you are both trying to restore profiles other than your existing ones, so it’s not the same situation. But I thought I’d relate my experience of needing to reboot clean before copying my files in and starting Brave.
I have done some more digging on this and on my machine. I found the file User_Data\Local State and opened it up in Notepad. You’ll probably see it as a bunch of jibberish, but as a programmer, I realized right away that it was a JSON file. So I opened it in Visual Studio and found it contains a lot of information about the profiles in the browser.
Here is a small segment of the file…
"Profile 1": {
"active_time": 1680662991.796407,
"avatar_icon": "chrome://theme/IDR_PROFILE_AVATAR_74",
"background_apps": false,
"default_avatar_fill_color": -15911582,
"default_avatar_stroke_color": -1,
"force_signin_profile_locked": false,
"gaia_id": "",
"is_consented_primary_account": false,
"is_ephemeral": false,
"is_using_default_avatar": false,
"is_using_default_name": false,
"managed_user_id": "",
"metrics_bucket_index": 2,
"name": "John Doe",
"profile_highlight_color": -15911582,
"shortcut_name": "John Doe",
"signin.with_credential_provider": false,
"use_gaia_picture": false,
"user_name": ""
},
That file seems to be where all the profiles are defined. So make sure that file is in your restore. Also note that if you’ve made any new profiles since your backup, replacing this file would remove their existence.
It also contains a lot of other browser settings, so setting changes might revert back to what they were when that file was backed up.
Thanks for this - looks like another piece/es of the puzzle.
It seems to me there should be an automatic backup created when you update a profile, with a user-definable number to keep.
It shouldn’t be any harder to restore than copying files/folders from the backup to the active.
I used to find rooting around in this kind of stuff entertaining, but after 40+ years of doing software, I’m getting tired of getting stuck with the bill/hassle of fragile development.
Well… The profile contains all sorts of stuff. Any open tabs, their user-state, cache, etc. I just checked my default profile and this is what I found…
When I look at all profiles, this is what I find…
That might be a little troublesome to keep backups of, let alone multiple versions… 
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