Backup OneTab

CAUTION: Restoring doesn't really work right now due to recent OneTab changes, so please refer to this issue. I am working on a fix.

This is a python script that will allow you to automatically* back up and manually restore your OneTab extension Chrome data.

*With Windows Task Scheduler

The problem

I have used OneTab for years and have saved more than one thousand links. However, one day, I opened up OneTab and all my links were gone. I tried finding a better extension, but I couldn't find one as simple and efficient as OneTab. So, I decided to make a script to automatically back up and manually restore my data.

This repository includes

• Python script named backupOneTab.py
• A backups folder that contains a backup example

How to use

1. Clone this repository.
2. Open backupOneTab.py using a text editor or IDE.
   • In line 6, replace <Username> with your system user's username. For example, my path is C:/Users/joshc/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/User Data/Default/Local Storage/leveldb.
   • If you want to save your backups to another folder other than the one in this repository, in line 7, replace ./backups/ with your backups folder path (make sure to include the last backslash /).
3. Then, you can run the script using python backupOneTab.py.
4. If you want to automate the back ups (and use Windows), open up the Task Scheduler (search using the Windows key). Follow the steps below or watch this tutorial.
   • In the left pane, click Task Scheduler Library.
   • In the right pane, click Create Task...
   • Name your Task.
   • Go to the Actions tab and click New... at the bottom.
   • Under Settings, for Program/script input your python.exe path. For example, my path is C:\Python38-32\python.exe.
   • For Add arguments input backupOneTab.py --backup.
   • For Start in input the path of the directory where your backupOneTab.py script is in. For example, my path is D:\_W\_Web\BackupOneTab.
   • Hit OK, go to the Triggers tab, and click New... at the bottom.
   • For Begin the task select At log on.
   • Under Settings, select Specific user make sure that is your username.
   • Hit OK twice, and it should work.
5. I also used pyinstaller to make an executable of my script to make it easier to run. Follow this tutorial to do that.

The process

I first tried to use Selenium to automate a script that could go to the import-export.html extension page and copy the textarea data of the exported links. However, I learned that Selenium doesn't have access to extension pages (which are different from regular web pages). I tried using the webdriver.ChromeOptions().add_extension() method, but this just gave me a PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied.

So, I then tried something else. I knew from this helpful Reddit thread that the OneTab data was stored in the mysterious files in C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Local Storage\leveldb. So, I decided to make a script to back up (make a copy of) the files in that folder.

I first implemented distutils.dir_util.copy_tree() but would consistently get more PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied when copying the LOCK file. So, I ended up just using shutil.copy() to back up the files. After some testing, I discovered that the .ldb and .log files held the OneTab data. But, for some reason, when I only restored those files, Chrome would act like I had just installed all my extensions and would annoyingly open all the extension first install pages. So, eventually, I just backed up every file except for LOCK and that fixed the problem. I also used datetime to create folders named with the date and time the backup was made and implemented this all into a backup() method.

From there, I created a restore(index) method to restore a backup of your choosing (chosen with the index parameter) into the Chrome leveldb folder. However, I found that Chrome would sometimes use different numbered .ldb and .log files to store its data. This meant that my backups and the current leveldb folder might have differently numbered .ldb and .log files (for example: 000005.ldb vs. 000097.ldb). This could become a problem because just copying over a backup's files into the leveldb folder might result in some excess files that weren't in the backup remaining. So, I made sure to remove all files in the current leveldb folder that weren't in the backup before copying over the backup.

Then, I created a main function to handle all the system arguments one could input when running the script to control either a backup or restore function.

To run the script automatically on a consistent basis, I used Windows Task Scheduler. I created a new Task where I set a new Action to run the script and a new Trigger to trigger the Task whenever my user logged on. I tried to figure out how to implement a user logoff Trigger, and some sources claim that you can implement a script using the Registry Editor, but I didn't try it because it seemed sketchy.