How to restore a lost Download list or LinkGrabber list?

How to restore a lost Download list or LinkGrabber list?

JDownloader will backup your Download list and LinkGrabber list periodically.
You can find your lists in [Your JD Install directory]/cfg/ downloadlistXX.zip and linkcollectorXX.zip:
In case JDownloader failed to load a list, it auto creates a backup which will e.g. be stored as linkcollectorXX.zip.backup.
You can find those regular lists and backups in [Your JD Install directory]/cfg/ downloadlistXX.zip.backup and linkcollectorXX.zip.backup:

Ways to import such backup files:

1. File --> Load Linkcontainer

or:

2. Simply use drag'n drop to put these files into the LinkGrabber or Download Tab.

JDownloader will then ask you to confirm:

How to merge multiple linkgrabberlists/downloadlists?

This can be helpful if you e.g. got two JDownloader installations and you want to merge the link lists of both of them into a new JDownloader installation.
Simply start the (new) JDownloader and import your most recent downloadlistXXX.zip file and linkcollectorXXX.zip file of both previous installations one after another.
Note: JDownloader does not check for- or remove duplicates when you're importing multiple of those archives so if there are duplicates, you need to do this on your own.

Downloadlist & LinkGrabber backup settings (advanced settings) and file- saving behavior

You can change the backup behavior for both lists as described below.
You should really only touch these advanced settings if you know what you're doing!
All of the following settings can be found under Settings --> Advanced Settings

1. Define how many old lists should be kept:
   GeneralSettings: Keep x old lists
   If you set this e.g. to 5, six lists in total will be stored (e.g. 5 old ones & the current one).
2. Define the save delay:
   After every change (e.g. download-progress, moving an item in the list etc.), JD waits a defined amount of min/max milliseconds until it stored these lists - see:
   For Downloadlist:
   DownloadController.minimumsavedelay
DownloadController.maximumsavedelay
   For LinkGrabber:
   LinkCollector.minimumsavedelay
LinkCollector.maximumsavedelay
   Example behavior with minimum of 5000 and maximum of 60000:
   Changes of the affected list will be written at the earliest 5 seconds after your last changes and after 60 seconds after the latest.

Please keep in mind that these last stored lists are not any kind of archive / history nor should you treat them like a real backup!
JDownloader will create a new file containing the full list at each time it writes.
If you e.g. delete items in your downloadlist, these will only exist for a very short emount of time in these old lists.

I was unable to find the links I was looking for in existing .zip list files, what else can I do?

You can try to use tools to recover deleted files to try to find older/deleted .zip list files.

Tags: Downloadlist, Linkgrabberlist, recover, recovery, restore, Backup