Firefox saves your personal information such as bookmarks, passwords and user preferences in a set of files called your profile, 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.
Type about:profiles into the address bar and press the EnterReturn key. This will open the About Profiles page, where you can view, create and manage your Firefox profiles.
Note:
The
Root Directorystores
user profile datasuch as bookmarks, passwords, and preference settings. The
Local Directorystores the disk cache and other temporary data.
The About Profiles page includes the following options:
To manage profiles, find the profile you want to change and choose from these buttons underneath that profile:
If you have multiple installations of Firefox,
see below.
firefox.exe -P
-P
, -p
or -ProfileManager
(any of them should work).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 -Pand press
enter.
If the above instructions do not work or if you have multiple installations of Firefox, use the following instructions instead.
Multiple Firefox installationsYou 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
Firefox (32-bit) on 32-bit Windows (or 64-bit Firefox on 64-bit Windows)"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -P
Note: You may need to adjust these instructions if Firefox is installed in a non-default location (for example, when multiple installations exist).
If Firefox is already included in your Linux distribution or if you have installed Firefox with the package manager of your Linux distribution:
firefox -P
The P is capitalized. Alternatively, you can use -ProfileManager
instead of -P
.
The Firefox Profile Manager (Choose User Profile) window should open.
If the Profile Manager window still does not open, Firefox may have been running in the background, even though it was not visible. Close all instances of Firefox or restart the computer and then try again.
Create, remove or rename a profileYou can create, remove or rename a profile either from the Choose User Profile window when Firefox is closed or from the About Profiles page when Firefox is open, as follows:
Create a profileWarning: If you choose your own folder location for the profile, select a new or empty folder. If you choose a folder that isn't empty and you later remove the profile and choose the Delete Files option, everything inside that folder will be deleted.
You will be taken back to the Choose User Profile window or the About Profiles page and the new profile will be listed. When you first start Firefox with the new profile, you will be prompted to sign in to your Mozilla account so that you can sync your data with the new profile (see below).
Remove a profileYou can remove an existing profile as follows:
You can rename a profile as follows:
These options are only available when you start the Profile Manager when Firefox is closed.
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 startupWhen you have multiple profiles, this option tells Firefox what to do at startup:
You can sync your new profile with other Firefox profiles and devices. To learn more, see How do I set up Sync on my computer? and How do I choose what information to sync on Firefox?
Move a profileTo copy all of your Firefox data and settings to another Firefox installation (for example, when you get a new computer), you can make a backup of your Firefox profile, then restore it in your new location. For instructions, see Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles.
Recover information from an old profileIf you have important information from an old Firefox profile, such as bookmarks, passwords, or user preferences, you can transfer that information to a new Firefox profile by copying the associated files. For instructions, see Recover important data from an old profile. You can also switch to a previous profile to recover old profile data. See Recover user data missing after Firefox update for details.
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