All Brave profiles disappeared overnight, passwords and cookies lost but history/bookmarks remain

Brave Browser Desktop Support
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All Brave profiles disappeared overnight – passwords & cookies lost, but history/bookmarks still exist

Hi everyone,

I’m experiencing a very strange issue with Brave, and I’m hoping someone has encountered this before or knows how to recover my data.

What happened

I was using Windows 11. Last night, I accidentally fell asleep and my PC was configured to shut down automatically after being idle. There was no forced reboot or Windows update that I noticed.

The next morning, I launched my Default profile using its desktop shortcut. At first, everything looked completely normal.

However, when I opened YouTube, I suddenly noticed that my Google account had been logged out. That immediately seemed unusual.

I then tried switching to my other Brave profiles, but I found that none of my other profiles could be accessed anymore. Brave behaved as if all profiles had disappeared and only showed the profile selection screen.

What I found

I checked my user data folder:

C:\Users\PC\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\

All profile folders are still there, including:

  • Default

  • Profile 1

  • Profile 2

  • etc.

None of the folders were deleted.

What I tried

I found this Reddit post:

Using commands like:

"C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe" --profile-directory="Profile 2"

I was able to open each profile again.

So the profile folders themselves are not gone.

Current situation

After opening the profiles:

:white_check_mark: Browsing history is still there.

:white_check_mark: Bookmarks are still there.

:white_check_mark: Extensions are still installed.

:white_check_mark: Most profile settings appear intact.

But:

:cross_mark: Every website is logged out.

:cross_mark: All cookies/session data seem to be gone.

:cross_mark: Every saved password has disappeared.

The Password Manager (brave://password-manager/passwords) is completely empty on every profile.

This happened to all six profiles at the same time, which makes me think this is not a single-profile corruption.

Additional information

  • Windows 11

  • Brave was not manually closed before I went to sleep because I accidentally fell asleep, and my PC shut itself down automatically after being idle.

  • I do not use Brave Sync.

  • I did not intentionally delete any profile or password data.

  • I have not cleared browsing data or used any cleanup software.

Questions

  1. Is there a known issue that can cause all profiles to lose cookies and saved passwords simultaneously?

  2. Could this be related to Windows DPAPI or the Local State encryption keys?

  3. Are passwords stored somewhere else that I might still be able to recover?

  4. Is there any way to restore the original login sessions and Password Manager data if the profile folders still exist?

Since history, bookmarks, extensions, and almost everything else survived, I’m hoping the password database or encryption keys may still be recoverable.

I’d really appreciate any suggestions or troubleshooting steps.

Thank you!

2

Before trying more fixes, make a copy of the whole User Data folder while Brave is closed. Passwords and cookies are encrypted with Windows DPAPI, so if the Local State encryption key or the Windows user key changed/corrupted, the files can still be present but unreadable. I would check for recent Windows profile/restore/cleanup events, and also look whether Login Data / Cookies files exist in each profile folder and have a recent size/date. If you have File History, Previous Versions, or a backup from before the shutdown, restoring Local State together with the affected profile folders is usually the safest recovery route.