Extensions disappeared completely from Brave

Title: Extensions disappeared completely from Brave

Description:
My browser extensions, which were installed and working normally, disappeared completely. They don’t appear in brave://extensions anymore, not even disabled — they’re simply gone from the list.

Before this happened, I noticed in my download history an update file for one of the extensions that got stuck with the message “Check your internet connection” and never completed.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Extensions were working normally
  2. An automatic update attempt appeared in download history and failed/stalled
  3. Shortly after, the extensions were no longer listed in brave://extensions

Expected result:
Extensions should either update successfully or remain installed in their previous working state, not disappear entirely.

Actual result:
Extensions are completely removed from the list, with no way to reactivate them since they’re not there to reactivate.

Brave Version: [ 1.93.138 ]
Operating System: [Windows 10]

What specific extensions are you referring to here? Additionally, if you install these extensions again do they work as expected?

Chiming in just to say that the exact same thing happened to me today. Same version. W11.

I’ll throw in a “Me too!” for this issue. I got a message sayin that my extensions weren’t compatible and when I dismissed it, they were gone. I think the only one I currently had installed was my adblocker. I don’t remember which one it was other than some spinoff or replacement for uBlock Origin. It was working exactly as I wanted it to before this.
W10

I suggest listing the extensions you have installed and which are now missing

There are have been compromised extensions available for Chromium which also work with Brave. Just a possible idea (no evidence) but perhaps Google or Brave pulled the plug on the extensions due to them being compromised. Maybe check if it is possible to still download the extension. If it has been removed then that may be why it vanished.

Could be Brave / Google cleaning up the mess and trying to protect users.

Please be carful with downloading Brave extensions. There is a large amount of money being pumped into infecting peoples browsers. I am talking nation states. Or just small individuals or groups.

Me too. On OS X 26.5.2. I lost developer extensions that I have to find the code again for as well as OneTab and thousands of tabs that were stored in it. Not to mention all of the CSS blocking rules and countless other items that will take hours to restore. This is disgusting.

“I suggest listing the extensions you have installed and which are now missing”

This is one of the least helpful and condescending victim-blaming responses I’ve yet seen on here.

I am genuinely thinking this could be the problem. Try to load in your me of the missing extensions and see if it is still available.

Look up shady pander.. malware in extensions is a big issue.

Correct; and also why, both you and Brave Support have requested a list of extensions used. (Thank you.)

Extensions Testing Steps:

  • test by disabling all extensions
  • test by enabling each extension individually
  • test by uninstalling all extensions
  • test by installing each extension individually
  • test order of installation of extensions
  • test combinations of extensions

Example of good detective work by a member of the Brave Community:

  1. Original Post: ‘Anylist extension non-responsive on Brave Desktop
  2. Findings and solution: ‘Anylist extension non-responsive on Brave Desktop - #4 by bencro99

Example of hostile / malicious / malware / persistent extension named “C2Ext”

  1. Original Post: ‘Weird extension in my browser
  2. Warnings and assistance made by Brave Support, are in a number of posts. Anti-malware might not detect, but extension is able to download persistent malware.
  3. Details about the “C2Ext” extension: ‘Weird extension in my browser - #16 by TlapAndSickle

About: Automatically Update Extensions, and toggling the brave-user-extension-auto-update flag to “Disabled” via ‘brave://flags’ …

While this provides global control similar to Firefox, it currently does not support per-extension toggles.

Users requesting granular control (e.g., disabling updates for specific extensions while keeping others on auto-update) have submitted feature requests, but the current implementation applies to all user-installed extensions globally.

I was not aware you have opened a job / ticket with Brave support.

even listing one of the missing extensions I think is useful. Then we can see if it has been pulled from the Google store or if it is there? It could be that older versions have been pulled.

Also the idea I have about the malware being the reason is just a guess. It is worth checking IMHO.

That could make sense IF the disabled extensions were obscure barely known extensions, but in my case it disabled almost everything including known and respected ones like Bitwarden, Dark Reader, Awesome Screenshot, Tab Session Manager etc… I don’t believe these are infected by malware… the ones left were even more suspicious than those gone.

Were all your extensions set to auto update? Were they from the Chrome store?

Since Chrome just removed all MV2 apps from store, maybe your browser did an auto, couldn’t find em, and deleted them?

Yes those extensions would likely not be removed due to malware. But you have said some of your extensions are missing not all of them like others reported.

This is a really good point - I wonder if this is what is happening. I did ask Brave to add an option to allow disabling auto updates (per extension or globally) - unsure how that is progressing but it seems like an important feature.

The option to disable auto-updates of extensions globally has been there since version 1.91.168 (released 2026-06-04): brave://flags/#brave-user-extension-auto-update

Thanks for the update on this request. That is great news!

Metamask, Unisat and Leather. I lost a considerable amount of money, unfortunately I can’t find my MetaMask seed phrase, I checked https://polygonscan.com/ to see if I had been hacked or something, but my assets are still in the wallet. How can a browser do this to users? I keep my laptop turned off to avoid this kind of thing.

Specifically, Unisat and Leather disappeared, MetaMask showed up as corrupted(???) and asked to be reinstalled

This may have caused the extension data to get corrupted but it’s hard to tell. When you launched the browser, the extensions were gone but was there any sort of messaging that appeared in the browser about it?