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Move over from Arc

OpenArch can take over your Arc sidebar: spaces, favorites, pinned folders, today tabs and split views. With Alles übernehmen (take over everything) it also brings Arc’s logins and cookies, saved passwords, history, website data and installed extensions, so you carry on where you left off in Arc. Arc’s own data is only read, never changed.

Start the import

Section titled “Start the import”

On its first launch, if Arc is on the Mac, OpenArch asks Sidebar aus Arc übernehmen? Click Übernehmen to go on, or Nicht jetzt. It asks only once. Later, start the import from any of these:

  • Ablage › Aus Arc importieren …
  • the + at the bottom of the sidebar › Aus Arc importieren …
  • the command bar (⌘T): “Aus Arc importieren”
  • Settings › Import › Aus Arc › Importieren …

The window Aus Arc importieren counts what it found in Arc’s sidebar: spaces, favorites, pinned tabs, folders and open tabs. Then choose:

Button What happens
Alles übernehmen Takes the sidebar, then restarts OpenArch and copies Arc’s browser data.
Nur Sidebar Takes the sidebar only. OpenArch’s logins and other browser data stay as they are.
Abbrechen Nothing changes.

What comes over from the sidebar

Section titled “What comes over from the sidebar”

Both choices read Arc’s sidebar file (StorableSidebar.json) and take:

  • Spaces with their name, icon and color. Emoji stay as they are; Arc’s own icons become the matching SF Symbol where there is one, otherwise a dot. The color is the middle tone of the space’s Arc theme.
  • Favorites. Arc keeps them per profile, and so does OpenArch.
  • Pinned tabs and folders, with subfolders, folder icons and the names you gave tabs. Folders arrive closed.
  • Today tabs. They count as just used, so they are not archived right after the import.
  • Split views, with Arc’s widths, side by side or one above the other.
  • Profiles. Arc’s default profile becomes Persönlich; every other Arc profile becomes a profile named “Arc – “ and the name of its folder. Each space keeps its profile (see Spaces).
  • Icons from Arc’s favicon cache, so tabs show their icons before they have loaded.

Other kinds of entries in Arc’s sidebar are left out.

Alles übernehmen

Section titled “Alles übernehmen”

On top of the sidebar, Alles übernehmen brings:

  • logins and cookies
  • saved passwords and payment cards
  • history, which the command bar then also finds (the newest 50,000 pages)
  • website data: local storage, IndexedDB and service workers
  • the installed extensions, with their settings

This is what happens:

  1. Arc has to be closed. If it is running, OpenArch asks Arc beenden? and quits it for you; your tabs in Arc stay. If Arc does not quit within 15 seconds, quit it yourself and start the import again.
  2. OpenArch takes the sidebar and restarts.
  3. macOS asks once whether OpenArch may read “Arc Safe Storage” from your keychain. That is the key Arc encrypts logins and passwords with. Allow it; without it, the full import stops with a message and you can start it again.
  4. Before its Chromium starts, OpenArch copies Arc’s profile, leaving out caches and Arc’s open windows. The copy is an APFS clone: it is quick and takes no extra disk space until files change. Values Chromium encrypts (cookies, passwords, payment cards) are decrypted with Arc’s key and encrypted again with OpenArch’s (see Known limitations for how OpenArch stores them).
  5. The message Import aus Arc says how many cookies, passwords, history entries and extensions came over, and how many values could not be decrypted and were left out.

What to expect

Section titled “What to expect”
  • Logins are in your first profile. The browser data comes from Arc’s default profile and goes into Persönlich. Spaces that used Arc’s default profile are signed in; spaces from other Arc profiles get a profile of their own, but start signed out.
  • Nothing of OpenArch’s is deleted. The browser data OpenArch had in its first profile moves to a folder named Default (vor Arc-Import …) with the date and time, in ~/Library/Application Support/OpenArch/Chromium.
  • Arc stays as it was. OpenArch reads Arc’s sidebar file, reads its favicons from a copy and clones its profile. It writes nothing into Arc’s folders, so you can keep using Arc alongside.

Only the extensions

Section titled “Only the extensions”

If you would rather install Arc’s extensions again than copy them, use Extensions › Extensions aus Arc … or Settings › Import › Extensions aus Arc › Ordner anlegen. OpenArch then puts a pinned folder Extensions aus Arc at the top of the current space, with one Chrome Web Store link for each extension installed in any of Arc’s profiles (extensions from the Web Store only). Open each link and add the extension again. More in Extensions and Chrome features.