The latest best way to reinstall Brave without losing everything?

[lon]

I’ve seen a number of horror stories with reinstalling brave. I recall a while back Brave having a total install limit as well?

Brave’s been acting super funky for me in too many different areas and I’d like to start fresh - yet keep my rewards synched and ideally my bookmarks. I could lose cache, extensions, and the passwords as I’ve transitioned to primarily a separate pw management tool the last few years.

I’m on the latest MacOS Ventura on a macbook m1 air - any insights on a proper reinstall process?

[Saoiray]

@lon [quote=“lon, post:1, topic:459402”]
keep my rewards synched
[/quote]

No such thing as syncing Rewards. What can be said is anything on your Uphold or Gemini will remain there. If it’s in your browser, then you’d have to try to do a backup of your profile. You can find the path to your profile at brave://version.

@lon

total install limit as well?

Nah. There was a wallet limit to how many devices you could connect to Uphold or Gemini, but Brave basically got rid of that earlier this year.

@lon

any insights on a proper reinstall process?

Kind of gets tough as don’t really have much information from you. For example, is your Rewards verified? In any case, I’ll basically summarize the different ways to backup & restore. My descriptions may vary and not be the best, but should be good enough for you to understand and do.

OFFICIAL METHOD #1

Go to brave://sync and create a sync chain. Make sure you tell it to sync everything. This will sync everything below:

Basically, it would be everything except your Rewards. As for your Rewards, you can’t Sync it. If you’ve been linked to a custodial partner, all your BAT will be there. So even if “lost” the browser, you won’t lose BAT. So officially, just link new browser to Uphold after and you’ll have everything.

NOTE
Don’t forget sync code changes daily. So this will only work if you have another device, such as a phone, connected OR if you make sure to do your backup on the same day.

OFFICIAL METHOD #2

• Go to Bookmarks Manager and Export Bookmarks
• Go to passwords at brave://settings/passwords and Export Passwords

That’s about all you can directly backup. Then you’d be able to Import both of those in new browser installation. As for Rewards, only would carry over if you had prior linked to Uphold/Gemini, at which point balance will remain when you connect new browser.

UNOFFICIAL METHOD

• Find your profile path for current Brave at brave://version
• Copy your brave-browser folder found in above path to an external drive, such as a flash drive
• Go to passwords at brave://settings/passwords and Export Passwords Export this to external drive

Then

• On new device, you’d install Brave and pretty much instantly replace the brave-browser folder you saved to external drive earlier. Try not to open Brave at all before replacing the folder.
• Go to brave://settings/passwords and Import Passwords. Import password you exported earlier

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NOTE
Unofficial method is the ONLY way to stand a chance of keeping BAT if you’re not connected to Gemini or Uphold.

[lon]

Thanks for this. I didn’t need the passwords as I use a separate manager.

When I uninstalled brave, I also removed the library/application support/Brave Software data, by renaming the Brave-Browser folder to a backup.

However, when rebooted and I reinstalled Brave, the only thing I imported back was the bookmarks, and noticed it created a new Application Support folder, but I noticed my shields settings and profile’s were still present.

Is there somewhere else these settings are being stored? While Brave seems zippier now, I’m still having some persistent login issues which I read was likely being something that had corrupted within Brave.