How to create a new profile in Mozilla? Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data How to create a new profile in Mozilla

Hello to everyone who has visited the site for Internet beginners. On the pages of our resource we talked about the Mozilla Firefox browser, how to install it, its settings, etc. For more details, see dedicated to this topic. Today we will look at what a profile is, how to find it, what files are in it and what they are responsible for.

During the installation of the browser, a special folder is created in which all our information will be stored in the future: sessions, passwords, bookmarks, installed extensions, various panels and much more. This folder is called " profile».

It is stored separately from all browser program files. This means that you can safely uninstall and reinstall Mozilla Firefox. Your profile data will be saved. Or vice versa, if you have a problem, then you do not have to delete the browser, but simply delete the profile and thus solve your problem.

Where is the firefox profile located

There are two ways to find out where the firefox profile folder is located. Let's look at them.

Using a browser. We launch it, open the main menu and click on the small icon with a question mark.

This way we will open a help desk.

And go to " Problem Solving Information».

The Mozilla Firefox details page will appear in front of us. In the column "" click on the button " Show folder" In a second it will open in front of you. All your information from this browser is stored here.

You can go to this profile folder without opening Firefox - keyboard shortcuts Win and R (Win + R). When using them, the window “ Execute»

Enter the following command: “ %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\" and click "Ok". Explorer will open, where the profile folder will be indicated, in which the word default will be indicated, approximately in this format (xxxxxxxxx.default-00000000000).

What is stored in the Mozilla Firefox profile

Now let's look at what exactly is stored in the profile folder.

Bookmarks, history, data about downloaded files are contained in the file places.sqlite

All backup copies of your bookmarks are stored in the folder bookmarkbackups. In order to restore bookmarks from a backup copy, open your browser, click on the button Import and backups

You can use another way to save bookmarks -.

Data about passwords, which you save in the browser are stored in files logins.json And key3.db

For sites such as: where and what pop-ups to show are in the files permissions.sqlite And content-prefs.sqlite

List of installed search engines displays the file search.json.mozlz4

File formhistory.sqlite contains data about your search or what you entered on various sites. Created for autofill form fields on resources.

An alternative to cookies is storage DOM, it is larger in volume, safe. The file is responsible for storing information webappsstore.sqlite

All extension data that you installed in the browser are stored in the folder extensions

If you installed security certificates and SSL, then all their settings are stored in a file cert8.db

Database protective modules stored in secmod.db

File mimeTypes.rdf tells the browser what to do boot actions this or that file. For example, open a file in .pdf format in Acrobat Reader

All information about MIME types installed plugins are contained in the file pluginreg.dat

Location settings toolbars, window sizes and positions are stored in xulstore.json

All browser settings that we ourselves set in the Settings window are saved in a file prefs.js

We have reviewed the most important data for saving and restoring. So, today we learned what a profile is, where it is located and what is in it.

Let's end this today. Next time we'll talk about how to manage passwords in Mozilla Firefox. See you again!

Everyone is unhappy exactly as much as he considers himself unhappy.

Giacomo Leopardi

Firefox stores your personal information, such as bookmarks, passwords, and personal settings, in a set of files called a profile, which is stored separately from Firefox program files. You can have multiple profiles, each containing its own set of data. Using the profile manager, you can create, delete, rename profiles, and also switch between them.

• If you have (or are planning on) multiple installations of Firefox on the same computer, read the article Custom profiles for each Firefox installation.
• If you are solving a Firefox related issue: The Firefox Cleanup feature can solve many problems by resetting Firefox to its original state. In this case, the information you need will be saved. Try using this feature before starting a lengthy troubleshooting process.

Launching the Profile Manager

Managing profiles while Firefox is open

Enter about:profiles into the Firefox address bar and click EnterReturn. As a result, the page will open About profiles.

The following options are available:

To manage profiles, find the profile you want to edit and select the desired button under this profile:

• Rename Click this button to change the profile name in the Profile Manager. Note: The folder that contains the files for the profile is not renamed.

• Set as default profile This option allows you to switch profiles. Click this button to make Firefox use this profile by default when starting up.

• Launch another browser with this profile If you click this button, another Firefox window will open using this profile.

Launching Profile Manager with Firefox closed

Note: Another way to launch the profile manager is from the search field in the Windows Start menu. Close Firefox (if it's running), click , type firefox.exe -P and press enter.

If the instructions above don't work, or if you have multiple installations of Firefox, use the following instructions.

Multiple Firefox installations

You can install multiple Firefox programs in different locations. To launch the Profile Manager for a specific Firefox installation, replace firefox.exe in the instructions above with the full path to the Firefox program, enclose the string in quotes, and then add a space and -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

The Firefox Profile Manager window should open (select user profile).

Note: You may need to customize these instructions if Firefox is not installed in the default path (for example, if there are multiple installations).

If Firefox is already included in your Linux distribution or you installed Firefox using the package manager on your Linux distribution:

The startup parameter is written with a capital letter P. Additionally, you can use the -ProfileManager option instead of the -P option.
The Firefox Profile Manager window should open (select user profile).

If the Profile Manager window still does not appear, then Firefox may already be running in the background, even if it is not visible. Close any running copies of Firefox or restart your computer and try again.

Creating a Profile

After running the Profile Manager as described above, you can create a new, additional profile as follows:

You will be returned to the Profile Manager window, where the new profile will be displayed in the list. When you first launch Firefox with a new profile, you will be asked to sign in to your Firefox account so you can (see below).

Deleting a profile

After launching the Profile Manager as described above, you can delete an existing profile as follows:

Renaming a profile

After launching the Profile Manager as described above, you can rename the profile as follows:

1. In the profile manager, select the profile to rename and click the Rename... button.
2. Enter a new name for your profile. Type your new profile name and click OK.
   • Note: The folder containing the profile files will not be renamed.

Options

These options are only available when you .

Work autonomously

Selecting this option loads the selected profile and launches Firefox without an Internet connection. You can view previously visited web pages and experiment with your profile.

Use the selected profile without asking at startup

If you have multiple profiles, this option tells Firefox what to do when launched:

• If you check this option, Firefox will automatically load the selected profile on startup. To access other profiles, you must first launch the Profile Manager.
• If you uncheck this option, Firefox will show you the Profile Manager every time you start Firefox so you can choose the profile to use.

Use Sync with new profile

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

Enter your email address and click Continue to create or sign in to a Firefox account. You can then set up "sync" for the new profile so you can share bookmarks, browsing history, passwords, and other user data with other Firefox profiles or devices.

• If you're already using syncing on another profile or device, enter the email address and password for your Firefox account so that your new profile can use these settings.

• If you don't use synchronization, don't want to sync data to a new profile, or if you want to decide this later, you can log into your Firefox account and select "Don't sync this device" (see Turn off Firefox sync) or skip this step.

For more information, read the articles How do I set up Sync on my computer? and How do I choose what types of information Firefox syncs? .

Moving a profile

Recovering information from an old profile

If you have important information in your old Firefox profile, such as bookmarks, passwords, or user settings, you can transfer that information to your new Firefox profile by copying the appropriate files. For more information, read the article Recovering important data from an old profile. You can also switch to a previous profile to restore your old profile data. Read the article How to recover user data that was lost after updating Firefox for more information.

All the changes you make in Firefox, such as your home page, the panels you use, the extensions you install, your bookmarks and saved passwords, are stored in a special folder called a "profile". Your profile folder is kept separate from your Firefox executables, so if something goes wrong with Firefox, your information will always be there. This also means that you can uninstall Firefox without losing your settings, and that you don't have to reinstall Firefox to remove information or fix a problem.

How can I find my profile?

How to find a profile without opening Firefox

Click on the icon Finder in the dock. In the menu bar, click the Go menu and hold down the option or alt key and select Library. A window will open containing your Library folder.

1. Open the Application Support folder, in it open the Firefox folder, and in it open the Profiles folder.
2. Your profile folder is located inside this folder. If you have only one profile, its folder will be named "default".

1. (Ubuntu) Open the Go menu at the top left of the screen and select Home Folder. The File Browser window appears.
2. Open the View menu and select Show hidden files, if it is not already marked.
3. Double click on the .mozilla folder.
4. If you have only one profile, its folder will be named "default".

What information is stored in my profile?

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

• Bookmarks, downloads and browsing history: The places.sqlite file contains all your Firefox bookmarks, lists of all the files you've downloaded, and all the websites you've visited. The bookmarkbackups folder stores bookmark backup files that can be used to restore bookmarks. The favicons.sqlite file contains the favicons for your Firefox bookmarks. For more information, read How to Use Bookmarks to Remember and Organize Your Favorite Sites and Restoring Bookmarks from a Backup or Transferring Them to Another Computer.
• Passwords: Your passwords are stored in the key4.db and logins.json files. For more information, read the article Saved Passwords - Remember, delete, edit passwords in Firefox.
• Site-specific settings: The permissions.sqlite and content-prefs.sqlite files store many of Firefox's permissions (such as which sites are allowed to open pop-up windows) or zoom levels that are set on a per-site basis (read Font Size and Page Scale - Make Your Web Pages Size Larger).
• Search engines: The file search.json.mozlz4 contains search engines installed by the user. For more information, read the article Add or remove search engines in Firefox.
• Personal dictionary: The persdict.dat file contains all the additional words you have added to the Firefox dictionary. For more information, read the article How to check spelling in Firefox? .
• Autofill fields: The formhistory.sqlite file remembers what you searched for in the Firefox search bar and what information you entered into fields on websites. For more information, read the article Manage forms to autofill with your information in Firefox.
• Cookies: Cookies are small pieces of data stored on your computer by websites you visit. Usually this is something like site settings or login status. All cookies are stored in the cookies.sqlite file.
• DOM storage: DOM storage is intended to provide a larger, safer, and easier-to-use alternative to storing information in cookies. The information is stored in the webappsstore.sqlite file for websites and in the chromeappsstore.sqlite file for about:* pages.
• Extensions: The extensions folder, if it exists, stores files for all the 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 contains all of your security certificate settings and all the SSL certificates that you imported into Firefox.
• Security device settings: The pkcs11.txt file stores the configuration of security modules.
• Actions when downloading files: The handlers.json file contains your settings, which tell Firefox what to do when it sees certain file types. For example, these settings tell Firefox to open PDF files with Acrobat Reader when you click on them. For more information, see Change what Firefox does when you click or download a file.
• Saved session: The sessionstore.jsonlz4 file stores the currently open tabs and windows. For more information, read the article Restoring a previous session - Setting when Firefox displays your most recent tabs and windows.
• Toolbar settings: The xulstore.json file stores toolbar settings and window positions/sizes. For more information read the article

A Firefox user profile is the totality of all his settings and confidential data. To put it simply, there are all sorts of passwords, bookmarks, settings, etc. are recorded in several special files and stored in a separate folder. This is the profile.

Often, ordinary users and beginners simply do not know that there can be more than one profile in a browser. And each of them can be customized individually. Starting from logins and passwords of social network accounts and ending with the start page, design theme, etc. People more often start downloading and installing browsers from different manufacturers for this purpose. Thus creating additional inconvenience for yourself. Therefore, multiple Firefox user profiles on one machine may be needed for two reasons:

1. There are technical problems with the main "work" Firefox profile. Then creating a new profile is part of the diagnosis, as well as a possible solution to the problems that have arisen.
2. Several people have access to the computer with their own tastes and preferences regarding settings.

Create a new profile.

To create 2-3 Firefox profiles and freely switch between them, you need to slightly edit the browser shortcut. To do this you should:

Open the properties of the “Mozilla Firefox” shortcut (Right click – “Properties”).

In the window that appears, you need to add “–p” separated by a space to the line “C:\Program Data\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe”. And click OK. It should look like this:

“C:\ProgramData\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” -p

Now launching the browser using this shortcut will open the profile manager window.

For most users, their profile is called “default” i.e. - "default". Further:

1. You need to click on the “Create” button. Read with interest the explanations from Firefox and click “Next”.

2. Type the name of the new profile and click “Done”.

Notes:

• You can leave the suggested name “Default User”, but in order to increase security, and just for convenience, it is worth changing it.
• The profile name can be set in Russian. But it is recommended to use Latin letters, because... This will help avoid a number of problems in the future.
• You can specify the storage folder yourself (blue arrow in Fig. 3), but this is not necessary.

Create shortcuts for each profile.

If you leave the browser shortcut with this addition “firefox -p”, then every time you start the program you will need to select the desired profile by clicking the mouse and clicking “Launch Firefox”. In this case, you should uncheck the “Do not ask at startup” checkbox.

Otherwise, the next time you start the program, Firefox will not “ask” anything, but will open the same profile.

But! If the machine is used by people of different levels of computer knowledge (there are different mothers and grandmothers), then it is better to create separate shortcuts for each profile. If, for example, Vasya and Masha work on a PC, then you need to:

1. Create a copy of an existing shortcut. Rename for convenience to “Vasya. Using the above method, open its properties and after “firefox.exe -p” add (separated by a space) the user name Vasya:
   “C:\ProgramData\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” -p Vasya
2. Repeat these steps for user Masha.

Note.

Pay special attention to the correct placement of spaces in shortcut paths! All switches, like -p, must be entered in Latin characters!

As a result, there will be three shortcuts on the desktop:

– Shortcut “Mozilla Firefox”. It should be left for the convenience of further work with creation, etc. browser profiles.
– Vasya. This shortcut will launch Firefox immediately with the Vasya user profile. With his favorite home page, bookmarks, browsing history, saved passwords, etc. installed.
- Masha. This shortcut will launch a browser with the personal data and settings of the user Masha.

Such a simple technique can help in solving computer and family problems, in the spirit of “Who erased my Odnoklassniki password again?!” In addition, this action increases the security of storing personal data for all browser users.

Are multiple people using the computer? Are you having problems with your browser, but don’t want to reinstall it? The program says that your profile could not be loaded? In all these cases, there is only one way out - create a new Firefox profile without deleting the old one.

Today we will tell you how to do this and give some tips.

How to create and upload a new Firefox profile

First, you should find the program shortcut. It can be located on the desktop, in the taskbar, or in the Start menu. Open the shortcut properties, switch to the “Shortcut” tab and pay attention to the “Object” field there.

Here you must insert a space after the quotes, and after it add -p -no-remote as shown in the screenshot:

Thanks to this, every time you launch Firefox, the profile manager will begin to appear. From it you can create a new one, select and load an existing one, and delete a profile if it is not needed. This is what the manager looks like for the author of this text, who works with several Firefox profiles at once:

Your initial profile that you have been working with all this time is called default. Most likely, unlike the picture above, you will only have this one in the list of available profiles. Without deleting it, you can create another completely clean Firefox profile. The “Create” button is located to the left of the profile list.

Creation happens very quickly. In the first window they will tell you the theory:

The profile is where all your data, additions and changes that you made to the original Firefox are stored. These are bookmarks, passwords, plugins, extensions, changed options and much more.

In the second window you will be asked to give the profile a name and choose where it will be stored:

You can agree with what is proposed without changing anything here. The existing “default” profile and the created “Default User” will be isolated from each other. Next, just click the “Finish” button and your clean new profile will be ready:

Select it and click the "Launch Firefox" button to download a clean version of the browser. In this case, all your data will remain untouched and will be in the “default” profile, which you can also open using the same shortcut by selecting it in the profile manager.

By the way, if necessary, nothing prevents you from opening both of these profiles at the same time. You will get two Firefox windows, but not simple ones, but independent of each other. Each with its own settings and data. As a result, running multiple Firefox profiles turns out to be quite easy:

Where are Firefox profiles located?

In the previous section, we explained what to do if Firefox does not start and displays an error message stating that the profile could not be loaded (it is missing, inaccessible, not found). As you understand, in this case you just need to create a new clean profile. However, the question immediately arises about the former, because your possibly valuable data remains there.

The folder with the old profile could somehow be completely erased. If the profile is deleted, this is a very bad option. However, the situation may be a little more optimistic: for example, only some files were damaged. The folder, in turn, might not have been deleted, but renamed or moved. Hence the profile error.

You should find the directory where Firefox stores profiles. Open the browser (since we have a new clean profile, it should now at least launch), click on the main menu, go to the “help” section, there find the “problem solving information” item:

Clicking on it will open a new tab with various information about the browser, and at the bottom there will be a button link to the current profile folder:

After clicking on it, an explorer window will launch, where all the information of your current profile will be displayed.

In order to see all available profiles, you need to go one level higher to the Profiles folder (click on the button pointed to by the arrow in the screenshot above). As a result, you will be taken to the directory where the folders with Mozilla browser profiles are stored. Each folder here is a profile. We have seven of them, you are unlikely to have more than two:

Folders start with a random set of characters, but by the end of the name it is not difficult to identify them. Default User is our blank profile (unless, of course, you chose a different name for it during the creation process in the previous section). But the default one, highlighted in the screenshot, is the original profile in which something could have been saved.

Transfer files between Firefox profiles

All profiles have the same files; by manually copying or moving them and replacing them, you can move your data from one profile to another. Perhaps the most important are three types of data.

• places.sqlite are your bookmarks. Your browsing history is also stored here. Along with this file, you can also transfer favicons.sqlite - these are the icons of your bookmarks;
• logins.json and key3.db are two of the most important files where Firefox saves your passwords. You only need to carry them together. If you don't have any passwords saved, you won't see the logins.json file;
• sessionstore.jsonlz4 – your tabs at the time you last exited the browser. Several more sessions can be stored in the sessionstore-backups folder (these are files with resolution .jsonlz4, the desired one should be renamed sessionstore and replaced with the base file).

Actually, for clarity, here are some of the files listed above in one of our test profiles:

Having made these replacements, you have a chance not only to revive Firefox with a new profile, but also to transfer data from the old one to it. If you are an inexperienced user, we recommend that you manually make backup copies somewhere of everything that you will move and replace. Well, a very obvious piece of advice: focus on size. The more places.sqlite and sessionstore.jsonlz4, the more of your bookmarks and tabs they store.

Firefox profiles and versions

The new Firefox profile can help you out in many situations. For example, when serious problems arise with the browser, but it is not advisable to reinstall it.

Another obvious scenario for using Firefox profiles is using them for different versions of the browser. Let's say you are a web developer or just an enthusiast who uses on your computer, in addition to the stable version of Firefox, outdated ones, as well as, conversely, new test versions:

For each of them you can and should make a separate profile. Using one for everyone is a bad idea. Firstly, the icons on the browser toolbars will be shuffled after running the old versions with the Australis interface and the new ones with the Photon interface. But these are minor things. But, secondly, downgrading your profile is not recommended by Mozilla itself.

For example, if one profile has already been loaded with a fresh test version, it is not recommended to run it on an older one. Especially if this is not a pure test profile, but your main one. Twice recently, in versions 55 and 58, Mozilla warned that it was making some changes that could cause profile incompatibility.

As a result, it is better to create a separate profile for each version. For the program, by the way, it creates it automatically. You can do the rest yourself:

It's very fast. The only inconvenience: each time you open any version of Firefox, you will have to manually select the desired profile from the list of available ones. This can be corrected by inserting in the properties of each shortcut the name of the profile that it should launch by default:

For example, we did this for the beta version of Firefox, the profile of which is simply called beta. The name is inserted between -p and -no remote without a leading hyphen or quotation marks.

This concludes our material. After reading it, you can easily create multiple profiles for one version of Firefox, or provide each version of the Mozilla browser with its own independent profile: