How can I recover lost Google Chrome bookmarks?

I installed the free upgrade to Windows 10. Now, I see that I've lost all of my files (pictures,videos,..), and more importantly in my case, the content of my bookmarks in Google Chrome. How can I get back the lost bookmarks?

Chrome syncs your bookmarks with its servers if you're logged into it with a Google account. If you were logged in previously, log in again and your bookmarks should reappear.

If you weren't logged in, you may still be in luck. Chrome stores bookmarks locally in a file that resides in its AppData folder C:\Users\[your user account]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default

There might be a file there called 'Bookmarks.bak'. If so, just remove '.bak' from the end so it's simply called 'Bookmarks' and relaunch Chrome. Your bookmarks should be back.

However, I find it odd that personal data such as pictures and videos have gone missing. I'm unsure why that would have happened, but this may have also lost the Bookmarks.bak file. If this is the case then you're out of luck.

To prevent losing your Chrome bookmarks again, follow these steps:

Export bookmarks from Chrome

1. In the top-right corner of the browser window, click the Chrome menu ⋮
2. Select Bookmarks > Bookmark Manager.
3. Click the Organize menu button in the center pane of Bookmark manager.
4. Select Export bookmarks to HTML file...
5. Chrome will export your bookmarks as an HTML file, which you can then import into Chrome or another web browser.