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Google Chrome backup extension issue

The issue

Google Chrome and all Chrome based browsers (including: Comodo Dragon, Vivaldi etc.) in the latest updates have introduced an Extensions control, that will remove any extensions that wasn’t installed using the browser.

With this control any external backup method will not restore the extensions, that will be automatically removed by the browser on the first launch.

The solution

Hekasoft Backup & Restore Plugin Scanner allow you to export all Google Chrome extensions, and restore them manually.

Backup

Step 1

Backup your Google Chrome profile (this works for Vivaldi, Comodo Dragon and all Google Chrome based browsers).

  1. Select Google Chrome
  2. Click on backup
  3. Click on Start
  4. Choose the backup location

Step 2

Open the Plugin Scanner (click on Tools -> Plugin Scanner)

  1. Choose the browser that you want to scan
  2. Click on Scan
  3. Check the extensions to export
  4. Click on Export

Step 3

Here you will choose where to export your extensions, for Google Chrome you can only export to desktop.

  1. Click Start to copy your extensions into a desktop folder

Backup Completed

Hekasoft Backup & Restore, create a folder named “hbr_extensions” on your Desktop, inside that folder you will have all the exported extensions divided by browser name.

Now you have the full Google Chrome Backup (profile file and extensions folder)

Restore

Step 1

Now that you have the full profile backup you can restore it.

  1. Choose the browser profile to restore
  2. Click on Restore
  3. Click On Start
  4. Load the backup file that you saved before

Step 2

Now you fully restored your profile, but it misses the extensions, so open your browser and go to the extensions page, you can go to settings -> more tools -> extensions or simply type:

chrome://extensions/

If you are using Google Chrome (or Chrome based browsers) you can click on this link to open the extensions page.

  1. On the extensions page enable “Developer Mode”

Step 3

Now you can load extensions manually from a folder.

  1. Click on “Load unpacked extension…” to manually load your extensions.

Now you will have to load your extension from the hbr_extensions folder.

Inside that folder you have subfolder with alpha-numeric characters, you need to open that folder and load the folder with only numeric characters (the extension version number)

Example:

Honey coupon finder extension

the honey folder is: bmnlcjabgnpnenekpadlanbbkooimhnj

inside that folder I find a subfolder “10.6.2_0” (the actual version number)

I need to load the “10.6.2_0” folder inside Google Chrome to load the extension.

Restore completed

Now you have restored all your Google Chrome profile.

This is a work-around to solve the issue with Google Chrome extensions backup.

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