Sync: Previously enabled between PC and phone, but appears to have unsynced several months ago without notice
No factory reset or login renaming
Issue Summary:
This morning, I discovered all saved passwords and most recent bookmarks were missing from Brave on my PC. I had restarted the machine the night before, and I suspect an automatic update may have triggered the loss. The issue appears permanent and cannot be reproduced.
What I’ve Tried:
I recovered bookmarks by converting a Bookmarks.bak file to HTML and reimporting it into Brave — thankfully.
I attempted to recreate my user profile (Profile 1, dated today) based on advice from a support thread, but the passwords did not return.
I found six profiles in the User Data directory on my desktop. Profiles 11 and 18 are dated February and may be the most recent valid ones.
My iPhone still contains some Brave passwords, but they are outdated (at least six months old).
No backup of the most current passwords exists.
Steps to Reproduce:
Open Brave
Navigate to Password Manager → No saved passwords found
Request:
Is there any way to recover the most recent saved passwords from Brave, potentially from one of the older user profiles (Profile 11 or 18)? Or is there a known issue with updates causing this kind of data loss?
Check if you have the Brave Sync Chain recovery seed saved, in a password manager?
It seems reasonable to make copies of each of the Profile folders before making more changes. Creating ZIP archives of each is a nice way to make sure that you 1) have a backup, that 2) won’t be modified or recognized as an additional profile to load and potentially modify unexpectedly.
IIRC, Sync is designed to be end-to-end-encrypted. I assume it’s only stored on your own devices, possibly with a cloud service offered to facilitate active syncing between devices.
I’ve had issues with Sync in the past, including errors reported on the about:sync-internals page. Linked pages include warning about large data sizes, >1000 bookmarks, lol, encouraging patient waiting for those to complete. I would suggest: make sure your browser is up to date, inspect and hopefully actively watch syncing, and leave it open to try to make progress. You can check about:about for other information. Good luck in juggling the profiles and desired data syncing.
I only understood part of your message, but yes, I have the seed recovery password phrase if that’s what you were referring to. However, the password data on my phone is outdated, so that doesn’t help in this case.
I’m really hoping for help locating where the saved passwords are stored within the user profile on my PC. If I can find that file, I might be able to convert it—similar to what I did with the bookmarks backup—and import it back into Brave.
I assume it’s in IndexedDB format, which I think changes as often as every upgrade. I’ve had to work through that with other extensions in the past. I hope you save exports, at least in the future .
Ah, I don’t use that feature. Have it nearly fully disabled. Possibly Secure Preferences file within a profile folder. If mine were larger, than the 1 entry it contains, I could gut check based on entries * size versus bytes on disk. It may be secured better than that, since this would be a wonderful first, even single target, for malware to copy off.
Sorting by last modified time can help, in addition to considering file size. You could also try, in another profile, listing files in profile directory, modifying passwords (adding one, deleting all), and checking which files have changed.
For the two February profiles that you have, are you able to open them through Brave’s profile selector?
After performing a quick test, it looks like the [ProfileX]/Login Data. The passwords are (… in the unique rarely considered usecase where it’s appropriate) encrypted, by a key for the browser, stored, likely in the operating system keychain. They might probably be usable if you just copy the file to another profile, or insert all the entries into another profile’s database. Edit: Appears the password encryption key may be per-release of Chrome, in case you have copies of the right file.
I’m sorry to hear that. I am of a sympathetic mind, that it’s frustrating that chromium browsers want to subsume all functionality, but then make no guarantees about keeping data in formats that are easy to copy, inspect, or meaningfully back up.
.