Long story short: My original hotshot laptop burned out. I got a $100 laptop off Craigslist so I could at least access the internet. I don’t know quite how I did it, but that laptop somehow (from the cloud?) retrieved all my old internet bookmarks from my old computer. Very useful!
Well, that Craigslist laptop is also a total relic and barely limps along. It has been driving me nuts for months, and for budget reasons I have given up on replacing my hotshot computer with a killer gaming machine and have bought a cheap but decent i3 laptop. Yah, it already seems to work a ton better.
Except, I’m not importing the old bookmarks on this one. It seemed automatic the last time, I didn’t even have to try.
There are some more labor-intensive things I could try, but if I could retrieve my bookmarks automatically again, that would be best. Does anyone know how to make that happen?
What browser are you using?
It was Firefox with the Craigslist laptop. This one is Windows 10 and there is Edge, I may give that a chance. I have downloaded Firefox and Chrome onto the new laptop, but neither has auto-synched.
If Firefox on your previous computer was synching, you must have a Firefox login. Menu bar somewhere top right. Check your old machine to see what account Firefox was logged into to see where your bookmarks are in the cloud, then it’s probably a good idea to log out of that account on the old machine if you’re no longer using it. You must to log in to the same account on the Firefox browser on your new machine.
Once you have logged in and cloud-synched Firefox on the new machine, if you want to use another browsers such as Chrome it has a menu option somewhere in the bookmark management to import the bookmarks that are in Firefox. And if you then prefer Chrome as your primary browser, you can set up a Google account and it will also synch to the cloud. But cloud synching does not work across different browsers.
All browsers also have menu options somewhere to import/export your bookmarks as html files. This is another way to move between different browsers or to make backups. It’s a good idea to archive dated backups of your bookmarks occasionally in case something goes wrong with the cloud synching.
Try2BComprehensive: This may or may not help you at this moment, but I found that using a browser plug-in (for Firefox or Chromem iirc) called “XMarks” (firefox addon site); works great at keeping your bookmarks both constantly available no matter what computer you are on. It also allows for easier sorting/arrangement of how you wish your 'marks to be displayed. I’ve used it for years w/out issue(s).
I did try using the Firefox sync, but found XMarks much easier to use and lots more versatility overall. Just MHO…ymmv. I know how losing bookmarks can be a PIA 
If the old computer is still available, you can use the MozBackup utility to back up your entire Firefox profile (logins and so forth as well as bookmarks) and restore it to the new computer. When I still used Firefox (I’ve since switched to Chrome almost entirely), I would periodically use MozBackup to make a current backup of my profile.
Success! Thanks, folks.
The trick was, counter-intuitively I thought, to click the Synch tab on the old computer. There I discovered that Firefox was aware of my new device, but I had to verify it before synch could proceed. I clicked “verify”, and a message was sent to my e-mail with something else to click. Only then was Synch ready to go on my new machine, which brought along all my bookmarks as hoped/expected. Yay! 