How to sync Vivaldi user data
If you use the Vivaldi browser on multiple devices, or even a stable and development version on the same computer, you may have run into a roadblock when it comes to making sure the user data is synced between all Vivaldi versions.
Vivaldi does not support Sync yet, but it is a feature that the company works on actively. It is likely that Sync will ship this year.
For now however, the only option that Vivaldi users have is to sync data manually between profiles. While this requires some manual work on part of the user, it is not super difficult.
Note: The method may be used to sync most user related data but not all of it. You cannot sync extension installations for instance it seems, so that you need to install extensions manually on all other devices you use Vivaldi on.
Syncing Vivaldi user data
You need to locate and copy the user data on the computer that you use Vivaldi on already.
- Open the Vivaldi web browser on the device.
- Load vivaldi://about in the address bar. This lists information about the Vivaldi installation including the profile path location.
- Copy the profile path, e.g. C:\Users\Martin\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\User Data\Default.
- Close the Vivaldi browser (you may get file in use errors when copying otherwise).
- Open the user data folder that you just copied in the system's file browser, but go up a directory so that User Data is the folder that is displayed (and not Default).
- Copy the Default folder. You can copy it to a USB Flash Drive for instance, or transfer it through other means to the target device.
The target device process
- Repeat the steps 1 to 4 on the target computer.
- Paste the User Data folder so that it replaces the existing User Data folder on the device. This overwrites the data.
When you start Vivaldi on the device afterwards, you will notice that the tabs of the Vivaldi installation of the other device are loaded, and that you have access to bookmarks and other data.
What is missing?
As mentioned earlier already, extensions are not carried over. This means that you need to install them again on the target machine.
Passwords are not synced as well. Instructions on how to export and import Vivaldi passwords are posted on the Vivaldi forum. I could not get those to work though, as the Export option did not show up when I tried the option.
Update: This appears to be caused by Google modifying Chrome's core, and Vivaldi using the same code. To get it to work, you need to set the chrome://flags/#password-import-export flag to enabled first, and then open chrome://settings-frame/passwords to get to the import and export options.
You can overcome the password syncing issue if you install a password manager extension from the Chrome Web Store.
Making things more comfortable
While you can leave it all at that, you import only one state and once you start using Vivaldi on different machines, states will inevitably change and become different again. Since data is not synced automatically, you'd have to repeat the steps.
This does not work overly well though, and here is the reason: you have to sync data whenever you have used a Vivaldi instance. If you don't, you may overwrite user data.
One option that may work is to launch Vivaldi with the --user-data-dir (--user-data-dir=Path) parameter, and use only one user data folder that is shared between all devices.
One option for that is to move the user data folder to a file synchronization folder, and use it on all devices that you run Vivaldi on.
Now You: Do you sync your browser data?
Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.