Windows 10: Restore previous version of Chrome User Data in Windows 10

Hi all,

one of my Chrome extensions recently lost all its settings overnight, including a whitelist that I very heavily rely on. I'm trying to restore the User Data directory to before these settings disappeared, and indeed the Previous Versions function in Windows 10 tells me older versions are available for being restored.

However, when I try to restore these, I get an error message that reads "Restore skipped restoring the file: [entire directory] to original location." The options for Restore To and Open also greyed out. I've read many accounts of people restoring their Chrome user data using the same method, so I'm not sure why I am unable to do the same.

The directory is located in C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data, which makes me think it may possibly be a permissions issue. I've already made sure all Chrome processes are ended, but to no avail.

Any suggestions would be highly appreciated!

Thanks a lot in advance,







:)

 

Lost Google Autosave passwords after System Restore

Using Windows 10 home, Google Chrome

Recently did a system restore to solve a problem I had with Cortana.

Since doing this, all my Autosaved username/passwords are no longer stored in Chrome. Yet all my Bookmarks are still intact.

Tried 'User Data' > Restore previous versions. This shows a version 2 years old.

Tried 'Passwords Chrome' thats shows a small number of Autosaved username/passwords.

As I am the sole user of my laptop, I do not sign into Chrome with an user/password although I do have a google account.

Is there any otherway of recovering the lost Autosaved username/passwords.

 

Cannot take ownership of ALL original files/folders after clean install of W10.

Hi Ian,

Was the ACL modified to restrict access to a particular user on the previous version of Windows. I suspect they belong to another user and therefore you are not able to access the data. If the data is important it will need to be restored from backup. These
folders will probably not be able to be deleted, but that depends on the previous ACL restriction.

-Sam

 

Hi Segia. Welcome to the TenForums @Segia.

While this thread is old it suggests not using the "Original Location" option but rather typing in the location manually. Might be worth looking into.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...8a72465?auth=1

Can you drill down further into these folders to keep the restoration to just what you need. This might help avoid conflict.


Ken

 

Hi Ken,

thank you so much for your response!

I also stumbled upon that thread, but unfortunately the option for Restore To (as well as Open) is greyed out - both here and in any random other directory.

In this User Data directory specifically, every folder so far that I've tried to restore has caused the error above, no matter how much further I drill down. In other directories (e.g. My Documents) I am able to restore files without problem.

Another thing that I noticed earlier this day is that I couldn't restore anything without my external hard drive connected, with the error message reading that was where the backup was stored. Not sure if it's relevant, but it was new information to me.

I'd be very grateful for any additional thought you might have!

Best regards,

 

Did you set appdata to be included in file history? It is my understanding, and I could be wrong, that appdata is not included by default.

Ken

 

I never manually did, but it does show that previous versions have been stored. Looking up solutions online, there's many accounts of people using Previous Versions to restore their Chrome extension settings, so I'm fairly certain it's possible.

 

Not sure if it is possible to navigate the file history drive with a tool like File explorer to confirm there are actually files there. Not sure if file history is using some sort of container.

You can search further but from what I saw File History does not, by default, back up appdata. Here is one such listing but that is not to say it is accurate either.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...5-5a894f3ed056

This more official looking document would confirm that although it says for Win 8.1

https://support.microsoft.com/en-sg/...8-file-history