Bookmarks travel, passwords do not — here is why the copied profile stays sealed, and the honest conditions under which the old drive can still give its passwords up.
The old PC is dead, so the hard drive comes out, goes into a new machine or a USB enclosure, and the Chrome folder is copied across with care. Bookmarks may travel. History may travel. The passwords will not open — and people burn days re-copying the same folder, convinced they missed a file. They did not. This page explains why the transplant fails, the one condition under which the old drive's passwords can still be recovered, and the much simpler move to try first whenever the old machine shows any sign of life.
👆 Copying is not the problem — the files arrive perfectly. The keys that open them simply do not live in the copied folder.
The passwords in Login Data are decrypted through a chain: the browser key in the old profile's Local State file, wrapped by the old profile's DPAPI master key, wrapped by the old Windows password, all inside the old Windows installation and its account identity (the SID). Your new PC has its own chain with its own keys. Asking the new installation to open the old file is asking a stranger's key to open your lock — the file is intact, the cryptography is intact, and the answer is still no. Newer Chrome versions add app-bound encryption on top, tying the key to the Chrome installation itself, which closes even some edge cases that old forum posts describe.
If you know the old Windows password for that profile, the story improves honestly. Offline DPAPI recovery is a documented, expert-level technique: using the old password (and account details from the old installation, which sit on the same drive), the old master key can be unwrapped without booting the old Windows, and the browser passwords decrypted with it. Be clear about what this is:
Before enclosures and offline work: does the old PC power on at all — even slowly, even with a broken screen (an external monitor works), even only sometimes? Five creaky minutes of life is enough. Boot it, sign in the way you always did, and run the live-session export from this set — the golden route. A machine that truly cannot boot is what the enclosure is for: take the drive out for its documents and photos, which copy freely, and pursue the passwords through the synced account instead. Divide the problem that way and nothing is wasted.
Watch the video for the full recovery walkthrough — this page explains the transplant case before you spend a day re-copying folders.
▶️ Watch Full VideoAlmost certainly not — the copy is fine, the keys are the problem. The passwords are sealed to the old Windows account through DPAPI, and newer Chrome ties them further to the old installation. Re-copying will never fix it; the routes that work are booting the old machine, the synced account, or offline recovery with the old password.
A good one will tell you the same thing this page does: with the old Windows password, expert offline DPAPI work may succeed; without it, no honest company can decrypt them, whatever their website implies. Judge any company by whether they ask about the old password and the synced account before quoting you a price.
Older Chrome versions protected each password with DPAPI directly rather than through a browser key — but the master key was still wrapped by the same Windows password, so the conclusion is the same. Age does not weaken the chain; in some ways newer versions are stricter, not older ones looser.