All of the changes you make in Firefox, like your home page, what toolbars you use, extensions you have installed, saved passwords and your bookmarks, are all stored in a special folder, called a profile. Your profile folder is stored in a separate place from the Firefox program so that, if something ever goes wrong with Firefox, your information will still be there. It also means you can uninstall Firefox without losing your settings and you don"t have to reinstall Firefox to clear your information or troubleshoot a problem.

Table of Contents

How do I find my profile?

Click the menu button, click Help and select Troubleshooting Information. From the Help menu, choose Troubleshooting Information. The Troubleshooting Information tab will open.

• Under the Application Basics section, click on Open Folder Show in Finder Open Directory. A window will open that contains your profile folder.Your profile folder will open.

Finding your profile without opening Firefox

Firefox stores your profile folder in this location on your computer, by default:
C:\Users\ \AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\
Windows hides the AppData folder by default but you can find your profile folder as follows:

1. From the Start Screen, click the Desktop tile. The Desktop view will open.
2. From the Desktop, hover in the lower right-hand corner to access the Charms.
3. Select the Search charm. The Search sidebar will open.
4. In the search box, type in:
   %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\
   without pressing Enter. A list of profile folders will appear.
5. Click on the profile folder you wish to open (it will open in a window). If you only have one profile, its folder would have "default" in the name.

1. Click the Finder icon in the dock. On the menu bar, click the Go menu, hold down the option or alt key and select Library . A window will open containing your Library folder.
2. Open the Application Support folder, then open the Firefox folder, and then the Profiles folder.
3. Your profile folder is within this folder. If you only have one profile, its folder would have "default" in the name.

1. (Ubuntu) Click the Places menu on the top right of the screen and select Home Folder. A File Browser window will appear.
2. Click the View menu and select Show Hidden Files if it isn't already checked.
3. Double click the folder marked .mozilla .
4. Double click the folder marked firefox . Your profile folder is within this folder. If you only have one profile, its folder would have "default" in the name.

What information is stored in my profile?

Note: This is not a complete list. Only important information is described.

• Bookmarks, Downloads and Browsing History: The places.sqlite file contains all your Firefox bookmarks and lists of all the files you"ve downloaded and websites you've visited. The bookmarkbackups folder stores bookmark backup files, which can be used to restore your bookmarks. The favicons.sqlite file contains all of the favicons for your Firefox bookmarks. For more information, see Bookmarks in Firefox and Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer .
• Passwords: Your passwords are stored in the key4.db and logins.json files. For more information, see Password Manager - Remember, delete, change and import saved passwords in Firefox.
• Site-specific preferences: The permissions.sqlite and content-prefs.sqlite files store many of your Firefox permissions (for instance, which sites are allowed to display popups) or zoom levels that are set on a site-by-site basis (see Font size and zoom - increase the size of web pages).
• Search engines: The search.json.mozlz4 file stores user-installed search engines. For more information, see Add or remove a search engine in Firefox.
• Personal dictionary: The persdict.dat file stores any custom words you have added to Firefox's dictionary. For more information, see How do I use the Firefox spell checker? .
• Autocomplete history: The formhistory.sqlite file remembers what you have searched for in the Firefox search bar and what information you’ve entered into forms on websites. For more information, see Control whether Firefox automatically fills in forms .
• Cookies: A cookie is a bit of information stored on your computer by a website you’ve visited. Usually this is something like your site preferences or login status. Cookies are all stored in the cookies.sqlite file.
• DOM storage: DOM Storage is designed to provide a larger, more secure, and easier-to-use alternative to storing information in cookies. Information is stored in the webappsstore.sqlite file for websites and in the chromeappsstore.sqlite for about:* pages.
• Extensions: The extensions folder, if it exists, stores files for any extensions you have installed. To learn more about Firefox extensions and other add-ons, see Find and install add-ons to add features to Firefox.
• Security certificate settings: The cert9.db file stores all your security certificate settings and any SSL certificates you have imported into Firefox.
• Security device settings: The pkcs11.txt file stores security module configuration.
• Download actions: The handlers.json file stores your preferences that tell Firefox what to do when it comes across a particular type of file. For example, these are the settings that tell Firefox to open a PDF file with Acrobat Reader when you click on it. For more information, see Change what Firefox does when you click on or download a file .
• Stored session: The sessionstore.jsonlz4 file stores the currently open tabs and windows. For more information, see Restore previous session - Configure when Firefox shows your most recent tabs and windows .
• Toolbar customization: The xulstore.json file stores toolbar and window size/position settings. For more information, see

Transferring a profile to Firefox to a disk, flash drive or hard drive is necessary to save user settings in the browser after reinstalling it, formatting the system partition, installation operating system. This procedure is also necessary when transferring Firefox data to another computer (for example, bookmarks, passwords, browsing history, etc.).

This article will show you how to transfer your profile to Firefox different ways, how to separately import and export bookmarks, as well as how to change its location on the disk (place it on another partition of the hard drive).

Profile structure

The profile folder is generated automatically by the browser. Its name consists of Latin letters and numbers. It stores information about user settings. Here are just some of the elements found in the profile that are necessary to restore the created Mozilla Firefox configuration:

• places.sqlite - bookmarks, history of visited pages and downloaded files;
• bookmarkbackups - reserve of saved bookmarks;
• key3.db, logins.json - credentials (passwords and logins);
• permissions.sqlite, content-prefs.sqlite - specialized Firefox settings (set scale, font size, resolution of pop-up windows for individual sites);
• search.json.mozlz4 - specified search engines;
• persdict.dat - additional words (browser dictionary);
• formhistory.sqlite - data for auto-filling fields;
• cookies.sqlite - cookies;
• extensions folder - connected extensions;
• cert8.db - settings of security certificates for secure network connections;
• secmod.db - database of security modules;
• mimeTypes.rdf - a set of browser actions for certain file types (for example, downloading, viewing PDF files);
• pluginreg.dat - MIME types of installed plugins;
• sessionstore.js - saved Internet session (open tabs, windows);
• xulstore.json - toolbar settings;
• prefs.js - options changed by the user.

How to access?

There are two ways to open the directory with profile settings:

Method No. 1: using the FF option

1. Click the Menu icon at the top right (three stripes icon).

2. In the window that pops up, under the block of icons, click “question mark”.

3. In the list, click “Information...”.

4. In the loaded tab, click “Open...”.

5. B system window The contents of the profile folder will appear.

If you want to view all available profiles, address bar window, click on the “Profiles” location path. The OS Explorer will “rise” one level in the hierarchy.

Method number 2: through the Start menu

1. Select “Start” in the taskbar.

2. B search bar type:
%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

3. A directory icon will appear in Start. Click it to view the contents.

Backup and Restore

Method #1: manually

1. Open the directory with profiles.

2. Close the browser: click the “cross” at the top left.

3. Click right click by profile that must be reserved for subsequent restoration. In the menu, click "Copy".

4. Transfer the copy to another folder on your hard drive (preferably not to the system partition) or to your desktop: click on empty space right-click, click "Insert".

5. Open the profile in which you want to place the created copy (on another PC, in a newly installed FF distribution, etc.).

6. Select all the elements in it (files and folders): select any object by clicking the mouse and pressing Ctrl + A.

7. Right-click on the highlighted list. In the menu, run the “Delete” command.

8. Open the previously copied folder (profile copy).

9. Copy its contents:

• select all elements;
• Right-click the menu and click Copy.

10. Go to the cleaned folder in the FF directory.

11. Right-click and click the “Insert” command in the list.

Note. If the folder has the same name as the backup folder, go up to the Profiles directory, and then click “Insert” and confirm replacing the entire folder.

12. Now that the data has been transferred, launch FF.

Method No. 2: automatically - in the MozBackup program

Mozbackup is a program that performs automatic recovery of user data in FF at the level of individual items. Frees the user from having to manually transfer the profile folder. Recommended for use primarily by novice users.

To use it, follow this guide:

Download and installation

1. Download the offsite - http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com.

2. Click the “Download” section.

Note. Anchors marked “no install” for download portable version programs.

4. Run the downloaded file and complete the installation.

Creating a backup

1. Click the utility shortcut. Click Next.

2. Make sure that the “Backup a profile” mode is enabled in the “Operation” block.

3. Click “Browse”, set the backup directory.

4. Select “Next” to proceed.

5. In the Question window:

• click “Yes” if you want to block access to the file with a password, and enter the key;
• Click "No" if you don't need a password.

6. Select the data you want to copy. Place “birds” near them.

7. When the reservation is complete, click “Finish”.

Recovering from a file

1. Close your browser, open MozBackup.

2. Turn on the “Restore a profile” mode.

3. Specify the path to the backup copy (Browse button).

4. Select the items to recover.

5. Confirm the launch of the operation: click “Yes” in the “Question” request.

Method #3: copy to Firefox account

The method allows you to store a backup on the FF developers' server and use it to transfer user settings to PCs and mobile devices.

To use it, do this:

1. In the browser, click: Tools → Settings.

2. Open the “Synchronization” subsection.

3. Click "Create an account".

4. Enter your email, login password (at least 8 characters long), and your age.

5. Click “Create...”.

6. Confirm entering synchronization mode.

7. Indicate which data needs to be backed up and which does not. By default, everything is checked (tabs, history, passwords, etc.). Click "Save...".

8. In the specified e-mail, open the notification from Firefox and use the link to confirm.

9. To restore the profile, go again: Tools → Settings → Synchronization.

10. Log in to your account: click Login, enter your login (e-mail) and password.

Transferring a profile to another section

Sometimes, for security reasons and to save free space on drive C, it becomes necessary to move a user profile from the default directory to an alternative storage (folder) located on another partition or hard drive.

This add-on is performed as follows:
1. Create a folder to store your profile.

For example: e:\profile\firefox\

Where "e:" is the drive partition letter.

2. Copy the contents of the profile folder in the browser (see instructions for manual backup).

3. Paste the copied data into the prepared empty folder.

4. Specify the path to the new storage location in your browser using one of the methods described below:

Method number 1: add-on in a shortcut

1. Right-click on the browser shortcut located on your desktop (which you use to launch). Open the Properties panel.

2. In the “Object” line to the existing entry (path to executable file) add the key:

Profile "d:\profile\firefox"

The quotes indicate the path to the new repository.

Method number 2: changing initialization

1. In the Start line, enter - %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini

2. Click on the profiles.ini file icon that appears. By default, it opens in the Notepad application.

3. Edit it:

Replace the line Path=Profiles/xxxxx.default with Path=d:\profile\firefox.

Where "d:\profile\firefox" is the path to the profile folder.

In the line IsRelative=1, replace the value “1” with “0”.

4. Save the option changes. In the Notepad menu, click File → Save (or Save As...).

After transferring the profile, all data and settings will be saved in the specified folder.

Transferring bookmarks

1. In the menu, click: Log → Show entire log.

2. In the Log panel, open the “Import and...” drop-down list and select “Export... to...”. Specify the directory for the bookmark file.

Accordingly, to restore or transfer bookmarks, for example, from Chrome to Firefox in HTML format, go to the log again, to “Import and ...” and click the “Import ...” option. Then specify the path to a copy of your bookmarks and download it. A collection of links will appear in the sidebar with your saved URLs.

Restoring a profile allows you to significantly save time during the individual process of reinstalling the system and installing it on another PC. Choose any of the described methods and create a backup copy of your profile folder right now. And then you probably won’t lose sight of the selection of your favorite sites, connected add-ons, network settings, and history of pages visited.

Let's imagine the situation. To work in the browser, you have configured panels and bookmarks for quick access to the required sites. For personal needs, this information is different. Is it possible to separate individual browser instances to separate personal from work activities? It turns out there is a way out. Let's look at how to create multiple Firefox profiles.

What it is

Profile is a collection of settings and personal information. These are logins, passwords from social networks, design themes, start page. They are recorded in files and stored in a special folder.

What is it for?

Several profiles are needed for the following reasons:

1. Problems with workers. Then creating another profile is a way to solve the problem. Also, in case of malfunctions, I recommend looking at the article: “”;
2. Several people have access to the browser with different preferences regarding settings.

How to create multiple profiles in Firefox

Let's edit the browser shortcut. Right-click on it, then “Properties”.
On the “Shortcut” tab, add the value “-p” separated by a space in the “Object” line.

Switch the keyboard layout to English.

By default, the suggested name is "Default User". I recommend changing it for convenience and increased security. You can write the name in Russian, but it is better to write it in Latin, so that there are no malfunctions in the future. Specify the storage folder yourself, but this is not necessary, you can leave it as default.

Shortcut for new profile

If you leave everything else unchanged, when you start the browser, a manager will open in which you will have to select a profile and click on the “Launch” button. To prevent it from opening every time you start it, uncheck the box next to “Without prompting”.
Now the browser will not ask, but will open the selected profile.

Create separate shortcuts for different settings

Perform the following sequence of actions:

As a result, icons will be created for each profile, with saved bookmarks, passwords, and history of visited sites.

The described method increases the security of storing personal information.

Running a browser with different profiles at the same time

Disable the browser, right-click on the icon, then in the “Properties” window in the “Object” tab, enter the parameter as in the screenshot:

Place a space after the "p".

Instead of enter the name of the created profile.
Click on the shortcut to open the browser. A selection window will appear. Select the desired option and click “Launch”.
A window with this profile will open. Minimize your browser. Click on the shortcut. In the manager, select another profile, click the “Launch” button. The browser will load with different settings.
Look at the screenshot. Two browsers are open at the same time. Working and just created with new settings. It can be seen that their settings are different.

Conclusion

The Mozilla Firefox browser profile includes everything custom settings browser. A Firefox profile includes browser settings, passwords, certificates, installed extensions, other user data.

During the installation of the browser on a computer, a user profile is created with the name “Default User” or simply “default”. This folder contains all user browser settings.

There are often situations when several people use the same browser. In this case, you can, of course, switch to another browser, but then you will have to abandon the browser you customized. In addition, one user can have two different profiles, for example, one for personal use, and the other for use for work purposes.

The Mozilla Firefox browser has a huge number of extensions (also called add-ons or plugins) with which you can customize your browser for comfortable use.

Users Firefox browser can use different settings and extensions. In order to ensure that when using one browser, each user has his own own settings, you will need to create new profile Mozilla Firefox.

You can create several different profiles in one Mozilla Firefox browser. Each browser profile will have its own settings that specific user will do as he pleases.

In order to create a new Mozilla Firefox browser profile, you will need to launch the Firefox Profile Manager.

Launching Firefox Profile Manager

To launch the profile manager on your computer, you will need to go to the “Start” menu, and in the search field you should enter the following expression - “firefox.exe -ProfileManager”, and then you will need to launch this application, or press the “Enter” button on your keyboard . There should be a space between the word "firefox.exe" and the dash sign.

Also, in order to launch the profile manager, you can enter another expression “firefox –f” in the search field, and then press the “Enter” button on your keyboard. There should also be a space after "firefox".

You can also launch the Mozilla Firefox browser profile manager by entering the full path to the file in the search field:

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -ProfileManager

After this, the profile manager window will open. In the "Firefox - select user profile" window, you can create a new profile in the Mozilla Firefox browser. Here you can create more than one Firefox profile, but several more profiles, as many as you need to have in your browser.

How to create a new Firefox profile

To create a new Mozilla Firefox browser profile, in the Firefox profile manager window, you must click on the “Create...” button.

Then the “Profile Creation Wizard” window will open, in which you need to click on the “Next” button.

In the “Completing the New Profile Wizard” window, you will need to enter a name for the new profile. By default, the new profile is given the name “Default User.” But, usually, the already created profile that was created when installing the browser on the computer will most likely have exactly the same name.

Therefore, the new Mozilla Firefox browser profile should be given a different name. In this image, you can see that I have given the new profile the name “new profile”. You can give the new Firefox profile a name that you want to use.

During the process of creating a profile, you can select a different folder to store the new profile, but I think that this is not necessary.

After creating a new Firefox browser profile, you need to click on the “Finish” button.

Now in the “Firefox - select user profile” window you will see two browser profiles - the old one (Default User) and the new one (new profile).

How to save and restore your profile in Firefox

Firefox browser profiles on Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 operating systems are located in the following path:

C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\profile_name

Before the profile name there is a set of 8 letters and numbers, different for each profile.

You won’t be able to just get to the profile location, since the Mozilla Firefox browser profile, by default, is located in hidden folder. Therefore, you will first need to enable the display of hidden folders on your computer.

If you open the folder where the browser profile is located, you will see that there are various folders and files.

If you need to save the browser profile to install it on another computer, or after reinstalling the operating system, then the Mozilla Firefox profile can be saved and then transferred to a new or different Mozilla browser Firefox.

Renaming a Firefox profile

You can rename the Mozilla Firefox browser profile. To do this, in the profile manager window, you need to select the profile that will need to be renamed, and then click on the “Rename..” button.

In the new “Rename Profile” window, give the profile a new name, and then click on the “OK” button.

After this, in the Mozilla Firefox profile manager window you will see the already changed profile name.

Deleting a Firefox profile

From the Mozilla Firefox browser profile manager window, you can delete a profile if for some reason you no longer need it. To delete a profile, in the “Firefox - select user profile” window, you will need to select the name of the desired profile, and then click on the “Delete...” button.

In the “Delete Profile” window, you will need to click on the “Delete Files” button.

After deleting a browser profile, all settings and user data that were in this profile will be deleted.

Selecting a profile when starting the Mozilla Firefox browser

After adding a new profile, when you launch the Mozilla Firefox browser, the profile manager window will open. In the "Firefox - select user profile" window, you will need to select a profile to launch by highlighting it, and then click on the "Launch Firefox" button.

After this, a browser window will open with the settings of the corresponding profile. If you do not launch another Mozilla Firefox browser profile very often, then you can use only the Firefox profile that you regularly use when starting the browser.

To do this, you will need to select the main browser profile, then activate the “Don’t ask when loading” option, and then click on the “Launch Firefox” button.

After this, the Mozilla Firefox browser will launch immediately in the selected profile, without launching the profile manager first.

If you need to launch a different profile, you will need to launch the Firefox Profile Manager to do so. To do this, you will need to go to the Start menu, then enter the expression “firefox.exe -ProfileManager” in the search field, and then launch the desired browser profile from the profile manager window.

Conclusions of the article

In the Mozilla Firefox browser, you can create a new Firefox browser profile so that your computer can use one browser from different profiles. Using the Firefox profile manager, you can launch the desired browser profile, with your settings and user data.

Mozilla Firefox profile - creating a new profile (video)

How to transfer mozilla firefox. After switching to, after reinstalling the system, or you need to transfer the browser with all the settings to other computers. Today I will tell you how to do this. Let's consider, in my opinion, the simplest option.

Transferring the Mozilla Firefox browser

I’ll show you using the example of transferring from Windows to Linux Debian. We will transfer the entire profile along with plugins, bookmarks, certificates, settings, passwords, cache, cookies, etc. As a result, you will open the browser in the form in which you copied it at the time of transfer.

Copy the profile folder from Windows

If firefox was installed by default, then you need to open the folder in the following path:

C:/Users/System username/AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Fireox/Profiles/t11n5wpzl.default

If you don't know where the browser is installed. For example, installed on another disk. You can open Mozilla settings. To do this, click the settings menu (the button at the top right with three horizontal stripes). And click on the icon with question mark at the bottom.

In the menu that opens, select “Information for solving problems”

On the page that opens. In the Profile Folder section, click the Open Folder button.

The profile folder will open.

The “t11n5wpzl.default” folder will be called differently in your case. This is exactly the firefox user profile directory. We copy it to any convenient place on a disk or flash drive. It’s better to create an archive so it will be more convenient to work in the future. You can now copy the contents of a folder on another system.

Transferring the profile to the computer with the system

Now let's look at how to do this in Debian (it's the same in any other distribution). We install and Russify. Open the profile folder. It is located in the user's directory.

~/home/Username/.mozilla/firefox/i8u5wobv.default

This directory is hidden so that it appears in file manager turn on display hidden files. This can be done by pressing the key combination “Ctrl+h”. Or, by opening the “viewing options”, check the “Show hidden files” flag.

To get to this directory you can use the same method as in Windows.

Open and delete everything that is there. Then we copy into it the contents of the folder that we are transferring from another system. Now launch the browser and use it.