The annotation API that is used for the description field is running on the main Firefox processor thread (i.e. uses synchronous access) and this affects the responsiveness of Firefox. There has been an effort to move all places transactions from the main thread to separate processor threads (asynchronous access) and because there is already another description field present that is used for Firefox Home (Activity Stream) it has been decided not to create a new asynchronous interface for the description field that was only exposed in the Bookmarks Manager (Library) under More.

See also:

• https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/bookbackreader.html
• https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/bookmark-notes/

Thanks for the answer. Responsiveness is something that traded for the description field, then. So are you suggesting using Bookmark Notes addon to do the importing? I knew of this addon and I was wondering if this addon is official or not. If that import process is proceeded and eventually the addon is discontinued some time in the future, then I will lose my description field again. I am trying to make a decision whether I should manually transfer all information to the keyword field or to use this Bookmark Notes. And I think we have not learn enough information to make that decision. Since keyword field is official, currently i intend to do this frustrating manual transfer of content to the keyword field...

The keyword field is designed to store a a short string of text you can enter into the address bar to trigger a bookmark. It doesn't seem to be limited to short string of text, but strange things might happen if used for long strings. I guess we'll learn as more people use it that way.

Thanks for advice. I think I would even consider turning the keyword function off using about:config to circumvent this. Description is far too more important to me. If there is some special functions that are linked to keyword field, please educate us and thanks again.

It is very often you need to record some info about a website, just like a diary and then forget about it until you visit it again someday. The most natural way is thru the bookmark. Removing the description field is denying this very natural function. How are we supposed to record our information now? I have no idea, and i dont want to rely on some unofficial addon.

petpetverygood2 said

How are we supposed to record our information now? I have no idea, and i dont want to rely on some unofficial addon.

I can think of any other place within Firefox bookmarks to store your notes. (The name field is long enough, but it doesn't "wrap" onto multiple lines.)

I wonder, since the Description field information is in the json file, is it possible that Firefox does not access it in any other time (to save the performance) , but only provide user the access to the Description field when the Library window is opened?

Then that would be the perfect solution for us Description users.

Anyway just a suggestion.

The API code that exposes this description field in the Library has been deprecated and removed (this code uses synchronous access), so it isn't possible to display this field. Because this field is still present in places.sqlite it is possible to include this field in a backup (JSON and HTML). Once this descripotion field has been removed from places.sqlite then this data is lost and your only option would be restoring an older JSON backup in an older Firefox version to create an HTML backup in case you didn't do this before.

I see, thanks for your advice.

Then I better move away from the description field and backup my information.

May be I better do the keyword field transfer, since I am seeking a long term solution. Are there any plan in removing this keyword field in recent years ?

The unofficial addon sounds unguaranteed and may discontinue anytime in the future.

Edit: Thanks again for your information. Since you mention SQLite, I start to browse into a copy of the place.sqlite databases using a free DB browser. From the structure of the database, I can tell it is not a good idea to move to the Keyword field as substitute, since it is designed to hold short word instead of sentences.

The only field that is good for the purpose is the Name field, since it seems to be the only LONGVARCHAR type field that would be accessed by the bookmark interface.

I am trying to write a SQL to ease the manual transfer, which I think is possible now. BTW I think this is just a work around and hardly can be called a solution to the problem.

So it seems there is no solution or remedy (eg transferring descriptions to elsewhere) that can be provided by Firefox?

Hi petpetverygood2, no, there isn't a good spot to store extra text related to bookmarks as part of Firefox's bookmark data. The other options are external to Firefox's own data files, either in a file maintained by an extension or in a file maintained by an external program or website.