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Now that I have Google Chrome all set up, I got myself a new laptop. Does anyone have any idea how to transfer my settings, cookies, favorites, etc?

I checked documents and settings\me\application data, and found nothing.

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  • I tried both ways, but my OLD PC settings of CHROME donot show up in new install on new laptop. OLD = WinXP New = Win7. Used CMD> %APPDATA% to discover the hidden Path and all. I copied in RAR format and unzipped, to recreate the files like original. What am I missing ? Also tried to SYNC but there is no explicit SYNC-to-ACCOUNT-from-current-PC. It seems you can only ENABLE and DISABLE a continuous SYNC process. How to SYNC your PAST HISTORY/ Bookmarks etc. RIGHT NOW --- its not clear at all. Probly I erred -- signed in on new laptop first; but I shud hav signed in FIRST on OLD one. Now I have
    – user134916
    May 18, 2012 at 12:44

7 Answers 7

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This link should help you out - basically:

  • On XP - C:\Documents and Settings<User Name>\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data
  • On Vista - C:\Users<User Name>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data
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    Warning: While this generally works, you will lose all stored passwords since they are encrypted using a Windows API that uses a machine/account specific key, which obviously will be different on any other machine/account.
    – ThiefMaster
    Aug 20, 2017 at 14:06
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    @ThiefMaster but in chrome://settings/passwords you can hit those three vertical dots and choose Export Passwords as a way to migrate passwords.
    – AndrewHarvey
    Jan 24, 2019 at 6:15
  • @AndrewHarvey not anymore.
    – Hellreaver
    Feb 1, 2020 at 18:59
  • This answer is now less helpful because of a broken link.
    – music2myear
    May 20 at 5:25
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  1. While logged in to the profile you wish to migrate (normally named Default if you didn't add additional profiles) enter the following URL in the address bar:

    chrome://version

  2. Copy the path listed under Profile Path

  3. Shut down chrome and then zip the folder and transfer it to the same location on the other machine.

Exclude the Cache folder under your profile folder to reduce file size. For example, you can copy the profile folder to a temporary location, delete the Cache sub-folder and then zip it.

If you have more profiles then repeat the operation while logged into each profile.

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    Show chrome://version on each profile.
    – JimB
    Apr 21, 2022 at 1:16
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On your old computer:

  • Go to Google Chrome, and then type in the address bar: chrome://settings/personal (or just navigate to Settings).
  • Click "sync to my account" (or something like that) to sync it to your Google account.

On your new computer:

  • Click the wrench icon.
  • Click sign in to Chrome.

As soon as you sign in to your synced Google account, all of your settings, bookmarks, etc. are transferred.

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You’ll find many sites showing you where the profile data is stored on disk, but moving the folders alone is insufficient. The secret ingredient is to bring over the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Chrome\PreferenceMACs registry key.

Here’s everything you need to do:

  • On the computer that has the Chrome profiles that you want to retain: Copy the “User Data” folder found in this path to portable media: C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\

  • Export this registry key to the same portable media: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Chrome\PreferenceMACs]

  • Move the portable media to your new computer.

  • On the computer that you want to move the Chrome profiles to:

  • Make sure all Chrome browser windows are closed and chrome.exe is not running

  • Copy the “User Data” folder from your portable media to C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\

  • Double-click the registry key that you saved to portable media in step 2

  • Open Chrome, and you’ll find your profiles are present!

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    Bless you, this did the trick for me. I'll note that when I only copied the specific Profile subfolders over, not the whole User Data, this did not seem to work.
    – dbreaux
    Mar 30 at 23:56
  • I tried this with many --user-data-dir for transfer from Win10 to Win11 but it didn't work.
    – ridilculous
    May 20 at 10:35
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C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\RA.N.DO.M Numbers

copy this folder and replace only the contents inside the Random Numbered Folder this is where all of your contents are held.

C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\23.0.1271.91

Click inside the folder and a list of files will be there this is what you need to copy and move over to another computer

When moving this file over to a new computer you must first install google chrome and establish a new profile number ( that's why the number is random )

delete the contents in the newly created profile and paste over the contents from the old profile.

Open chrome up and you are back in business.

Windows 7 to Windows 8 machine

If you wish to do a folder migration from XP to Windows 7 or 8 it is going to be 

C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\RA.N.DOM Numbers
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    I tried editing this, but I cannot figure out what it is trying to say. Those “random numbers” are not random, they are the version of Chrome. After you update it a few times, you will have several folder where each one is named for the version of Chrome installed in it. (For some reason, Google decided that it is a good idea to keep every version of Chrome you have ever used—my folder is currently >700MB.)
    – Synetech
    Nov 27, 2012 at 4:09
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You can to override the User Data Directory. To check where is located, navigate to: chrome://version.

Or you can start Chrome with the existing User Data, e.g.

Example:

  • [Windows] chrome.exe --user-data-dir=c:\foo
  • [Linux] google-chrome --user-data-dir=/path/to/foo

On Linux, you can also set CHROME_USER_DATA_DIR environment variable pointing to the user data directory.

Check also: Where are the user profile directories of Google Chrome located in?

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It does not work now, you will lose all stored passwords since they are encrypted using a Windows API that uses a machine/account specific key, which obviously will be different on any other machine/account. Browser Transfer application maybe useflul, https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9PP4M2NK8PC8.

They promise to transfer all as https://youtu.be/AWtpvXB5HsU

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