What are profiles in Firefox. How to transfer your profile to Firefox. How to create and upload a new Firefox profile

Firefox saves your personal information such as bookmarks, passwords, and user preferences in a set of files called yours, which is stored in a separate location from the Firefox program files. You can have multiple Firefox profiles, each containing a separate set of user information. The Profile Manager allows you to create, remove, rename, and switch profiles.

• If you have (or plan to have) multiple installations of Firefox on one computer, see Dedicated profiles per Firefox installation .
• If you are troubleshooting a problem with Firefox: The Refresh Firefox feature can fix many issues by restoring Firefox to its default state while saving your essential information. Consider using it before going through a lengthy troubleshooting process.

Table of Contents

Starting the Profile Manager

Manage profiles when Firefox is open

Type about:profiles into the address bar and press the EnterReturn key. This will open the About Profiles page.

The following options are available:

To manage profiles, find the profile you want to change and choose from these buttons underneath that profile:

• Rename Click this to change the name of a profile in the Profile Manager. Note: The folder containing the files for the profile is not renamed.

• Set as default profile This option allows you to switch profiles. Click this to make Firefox use this profile by default at startup.

• Launch profile in new browser When you click this, another Firefox window will open using that profile.

Start the Profile Manager when Firefox is closed

Note: Another way to start the Profile Manager is from the Search box in the Windows Start menu. Close Firefox (if open), press , type firefox.exe -P and press enter.

If the above instructions do not work or if you have multiple installations of Firefox, use the following instructions instead.

Multiple Firefox installations

You can have multiple Firefox programs installed in different locations. To start the Profile Manager for a specific Firefox installation, replace firefox.exe in the above instructions with the full path to the Firefox program, enclose that line in quotes, then add a space followed by -P.

Examples:
Firefox (32-bit) on 64-bit Windows
"C:\Program Files (x86)\ Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -P

Removing a profile

After starting the Profile Manager as explained above, you can remove an existing profile as follows:

Renaming a profile

After starting the Profile Manager as explained above, you can rename a profile as follows:

1. In the Profile Manager, select the profile to rename, and then click Rename Profile... .
2. Enter the new name for the profile. Type in the new profile name, and click on OK .
   • Note: The folder containing the files for the profile is not renamed.

Options

Work Offline

Choosing this option loads the selected profile and starts Firefox without connecting to the Internet. You can view previously viewed web pages and experiment with your profile.

Use the selected profile without asking at startup

When you have multiple profiles, this option tells Firefox what to do at startup:

• If you check this option, Firefox will automatically load the selected profile at startup. To access other profiles, you must start the Profile Manager first.
• If you uncheck this option, Firefox will show you the Profile Manager each time you start Firefox, so that you can select a profile to use.

Use Sync with a new profile

When you first open Firefox in a new profile, a Welcome to Firefox page will open, with a space to enter your email address.

What is a profile?

Firefox stores all the information that the user generates while using the browser in a special folder called a profile. Data such as bookmarks, cookies, browsing history, browser settings and installed add-ons, and remembered passwords are saved. At the first launching Firefox the profile is created with default settings.

Profile folder location

Depending on the operating system The default profile folder is located in the following paths.
If you created this folder yourself through the profile manager and specified a path different from the one suggested, the profile folder may be located in a different location.

Windows 95, 98 and ME

C:\Windows\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ \C:\Windows\Profiles\ \Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

Windows 2000, XP

Select “Start → Run”;

Enter %APPDATA%;

Click OK. A window will appear Windows Explorer;

IN Windows window Explorer, select “Mozilla → Firefox → Profiles.” Each subfolder in this folder is a profile on your computer.

C:\Documents and Settings\ \Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

The Application Data folder is a hidden folder. To display hidden folders open Windows Explorer and select: Tools → Folder Options → View tab → Show hidden files and folders."

Windows Vista and Windows 7

Click the Start button to open the menu;

Enter %APPDATA% in the Start Search field;

Click on the “Roaming” item that appears in the menu;

In the Windows Explorer window that opens, select “Mozilla → Firefox → Profiles.” Each subfolder in this folder is a profile on your computer.

You can also directly navigate to this folder using the following path:

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

The "AppData" folder is a hidden folder. To show hidden folders, open Windows Explorer and select: Organize → Folder and Search Options → Folder Options → View tab → Show hidden files and folders.

*nix

Profile folders are located in:

~/.mozilla/firefox/

The ".mozilla" folder is hidden by default.

Mac OS X

Profile folders are located in one of the following folders:

~/Library/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/ / ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/

The tilde character (~) refers to the current user's home directory. So ~/Library is the /Macintosh HD/Users/ folder /Library. (In the Russian version, the path to this folder may look like /Macintosh HD/Users/<имя пользователя>/Libraries)

Finding your profile folder

You can use the Open Profile Folder extension, which will open your profile folder if you use the corresponding menu item in the “Tools” section.

Creating a Profile

Files and folders located in the profile

It is not recommended to edit these files directly. Instead use user interface. The exceptions are three files whose name begins with "user". They are intended to be edited by the user directly. To get more detailed information about files, please refer to the table below.

Folders

Files

Files and folders located outside the profile

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. Click on it right click mouse, 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

Firefox saves your personal information such as bookmarks, passwords, and user preferences in a set of files called yours, which is stored in a separate location from the Firefox program files. You can have multiple Firefox profiles, each containing a separate set of user information. The Profile Manager allows you to create, remove, rename, and switch profiles.

• If you have (or plan to have) multiple installations of Firefox on one computer, see Dedicated profiles per Firefox installation .
• If you are troubleshooting a problem with Firefox: The Refresh Firefox feature can fix many issues by restoring Firefox to its default state while saving your essential information. Consider using it before going through a lengthy troubleshooting process.

Table of Contents

Starting the Profile Manager

Manage profiles when Firefox is open

Type about:profiles into the address bar and press the EnterReturn key. This will open the About Profiles page.

The following options are available:

To manage profiles, find the profile you want to change and choose from these buttons underneath that profile:

• Rename Click this to change the name of a profile in the Profile Manager. Note: The folder containing the files for the profile is not renamed.

• Set as default profile This option allows you to switch profiles. Click this to make Firefox use this profile by default at startup.

• Launch profile in new browser When you click this, another Firefox window will open using that profile.

Start the Profile Manager when Firefox is closed

Note: Another way to start the Profile Manager is from the Search box in the Windows Start menu. Close Firefox (if open), press , type firefox.exe -P and press enter.

If the above instructions do not work or if you have multiple installations of Firefox, use the following instructions instead.

Multiple Firefox installations

You can have multiple Firefox programs installed in different locations. To start the Profile Manager for a specific Firefox installation, replace firefox.exe in the above instructions with the full path to the Firefox program, enclose that line in quotes, then add a space followed by -P.

Examples:
Firefox (32-bit) on 64-bit Windows
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -P

Removing a profile

After starting the Profile Manager as explained above, you can remove an existing profile as follows:

Renaming a profile

After starting the Profile Manager as explained above, you can rename a profile as follows:

1. In the Profile Manager, select the profile to rename, and then click Rename Profile... .
2. Enter the new name for the profile. Type in the new profile name, and click on OK .
   • Note: The folder containing the files for the profile is not renamed.

Options

Work Offline

Choosing this option loads the selected profile and starts Firefox without connecting to the Internet. You can view previously viewed web pages and experiment with your profile.

Use the selected profile without asking at startup

When you have multiple profiles, this option tells Firefox what to do at startup:

• If you check this option, Firefox will automatically load the selected profile at startup. To access other profiles, you must start the Profile Manager first.
• If you uncheck this option, Firefox will show you the Profile Manager each time you start Firefox, so that you can select a profile to use.

Use Sync with a new profile

When you first open Firefox in a new profile, a Welcome to Firefox page will open, with a space to enter your email address.

Hello everyone who has visited our website. In one of the previous articles, we examined in detail what the Mozilla Firefox browser is. This is the folder where all our Firefox settings are stored. It is created by default when you first install the browser. But sometimes a situation arises when several profiles are needed for this browser (for example, for other family members or just a separate one for work). How to do it? The Profile Manager will help us with this. With it, you can add, rename, delete a profile, and also set some settings.

Launch the profile manager.

Before starting the manager, check whether it is closed Mozilla browser Firefox. If you have it open, then you need to close it. Then we will use . Press it and, without releasing it, press R (Win + R). A “window” will open in front of us, enter in the field firefox.exe -P

And click " OK» You will see the profile manager in front of you.

Here you will see your default profile, which stores all your data. To fulfill all further actions, which we will describe below, return to this screenshot.

Let's say we want to create new profile, which would store bookmarks, history for work or another family member.

Create a new Firefox profile

To do this, we just need to click on the button “ Create…"(number 1). The Create Profile Wizard will open.

Now we need to come up with a name for our new profile. Since we are planning to use it for production purposes, let's give it a suitable name, for example - For work. Or something else, at your discretion.

Next, you need to specify the folder where the created profile will be stored. By default, a folder with the profile name is created. You can use this option. If you want to set your own, then click " Select folder..." And in the explorer indicate the desired folder. We recommend creating a clean, empty folder for the profile; if you install it in a directory that contains some files, you risk losing them when you delete the profile.

Now that we have set a name and indicated a location, click “ Ready" A new profile will be created and will appear in the profile manager.

Select the created profile and launch the browser. It will open in the same form as it was after the first installation: there will be no bookmarks, the history will be empty, and you will not find any extensions or applications.

How to rename a profile

If, when creating a new profile, you made a mistake in its name or simply decided to change it, then this can be easily corrected. To do this, select the desired profile and select the button under number 2 - “ Rename».

Then we give a new name or correct the error and click “ OK" The profile will be renamed.

Delete Firefox profile

If you stop using a profile, you can safely delete it. To do this, select the appropriate button in the manager - under the number 3.

We will be offered 2 removal options.

Don't delete files. Selecting this option will remove the profile from the manager, but all your data files will be saved on your hard drive, which can be used for a new profile in the future.

Delete files. In this case, deletion occurs not only from the manager, but also all files with your data and settings. The profile folder is completely removed from the computer. You will not be able to restore anything after this. Therefore, take this fact into account when choosing this option.

Profile manager settings.

Work autonomously. If you set this parameter for a specific profile, Firefox will start in offline mode, without an Internet connection. In this case, you can view sites that you have visited previously and conduct experiments with your profile.

Launch the selected profile without prompting. If this checkbox is checked for a specific profile, then this profile will be loaded automatically when Firefox starts.

If you need to switch between profiles, then uncheck this option. Now, every time you start the browser, you will choose the profile you need.

Let me finish here, perhaps. Today we looked at how to create, rename, delete a Firefox profile. Share in the comments if you use your profiles in this browser.

Until we meet again and good mood to everyone!!!

Man is neither an angel nor an animal, and his misfortune is that the more he strives to become like an angel, the more he turns into an animal.

Blaise Pascal