Backing up your information
Mozilla Firefox stores all your personal settings, such as bookmarks, passwords and extensions, in a profile folder on your computer, separate from the Firefox program. To back up your profile, restore it, or move it to a new location or computer, all you have to do is move or copy the profile folder.
- Just Bookmarks? For backing up, restoring, or moving your bookmarks (not other data), see Backing up and restoring bookmarks.
Spis treści
- Locate your profile folder
- Windows 7 and Vista
- Windows 2000 and XP
- Backing up your profile
- Restoring a profile backup
- Restoring to a different location
- Restoring to a different location - advanced users
Locate your profile folder
In order to back up or restore your data, you need to know where Firefox stores the profile folder.
Each profile is stored on your hard drive in a profile folder. The default location of the Firefox profile is %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\.
- %APPDATA% is shorthand for the C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\ folder (Windows 7/Vista) or the C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\ folder (Windows XP/2000), which depends on your Windows user account name.
- xxxxxxxx represents a random string of 8 characters.
Windows 7 and Vista
- Click the Windows button, and type %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ in the search box at bottom of the Start menu, without pressing Enter. A list of profiles will appear at the top of the Start menu.
- Click on any of the profiles (e.g. xxxxxxxx.default) to open it with Windows Explorer.
Windows 2000 and XP
- Click the Windows button, and select Run....

- Type in %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ then click .
- Windows Explorer opens a folder containing your profiles.
- Double-click the profile folder you wish to open (e.g. the xxxxxxxx.default folder).
Each profile is stored on your hard drive in a profile folder. The default location of the Firefox profile is ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default/.
- xxxxxxxx represents a random string of 8 characters.
- Open Finder and go to your home folder. Note: your home folder is usually the name of your Mac user account
- From your home folder open /Library/, then /Application Support/, then /Firefox/, then /Profiles/.
- Open your profile folder. By default, it is /xxxxxxxx.default/ where xxxxxxxx represents a random string of 8 characters.
Each profile is stored on your hard drive in a profile folder. The default location of the Firefox profile is ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default/.
- xxxxxxxx represents a random string of 8 characters.
- (Ubuntu) Click the Places menu on the top right of the screen and select Home Folder. A File Browser window will appear.
- Click the View menu and select Show Hidden Files if it isn't already checked.
- Double click the folder marked .mozilla.
- Double click the folder marked firefox. Your profile folders are within this folder.
Backing up your profile
Backing up your profile folder in Firefox is easy. Just follow these steps:
- From the menu at the top of the Firefox windowbar, select FileFirefox and then select the ExitQuit FirefoxQuit menu item.
- Locate your profile folder, as explained above.
- Right-clickHold down the Ctrl key while you click on your profile folder, and select Copy.
- Right-clickHold down the Ctrl key while you click the backup location (e.g. a USB-stick or a blank CD-RW disc), and select Paste item.
Restoring a profile backup
- From the menu at the top of the Firefox windowbar, select FileFirefox and then select the ExitQuit FirefoxQuit menu item.
- If your existing profile folder and profile backup folder have the same name, simply replace the existing profile folder with the profile backup, then start Firefox. Important: The profile folder names must match exactly for this to work, including the random string of 8 characters. If the names do not match or if you are restoring a backup to a different location, follow the steps below.
Restoring to a different location
If the profile folder names do not match or if you want to move or restore a profile to a different location, do the following:
- Completely close Firefox, as explained above.
- Use the Firefox Profile Manager to create a new profile in your desired location, then exit the Profile Manager. Note: If you just installed Firefox on a new computer, you can use the default profile that is automatically created when you first run Firefox, instead of creating a new profile.
- Locate the backed up profile folder on your hard drive or backup medium (e.g., your USB-stick).
- Copy the entire contents of the old profile folder, such as the mimeTypes.rdf file, prefs.js file, bookmarkbackups folder, etc., and place the contents into the new profile folder, overwriting existing files of the same name.
- Start Firefox.
Restoring to a different location - advanced users
Instead of the above, advanced users may prefer to do the following:
- Locate the backed up profile folder on your hard drive or backup medium (e.g. your USB-stick) and copy it to the hard drive. Any target location on your hard drive will do, but it is advised that you put it in the default profile location, as explained in the first paragraph.
- Open up profiles.ini in a text editor by double clicking on it. The file is located in the application data folder for Firefox:
- On Windows 7 and Vista, the path is C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles.ini
- On Windows XP/2000, the path is C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles.ini
- In profiles.ini, locate the entry for the profile you've just moved. Change the Path= line to the new location.
- Change the line with the text IsRelative=1 to IsRelative=0.
- Review the changes made and save profiles.ini.
profiles.ini example: If your backed up profile folder is called 646a7374.default and was placed in C:\Users\David\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\, the profiles.ini file would look like this:
[General] StartWithLastProfile=1 [Profile0] Name=Default IsRelative=0 Path=C:\Users\David\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\646a7374.default
- Start Firefox.
Instead of the above, advanced users may prefer to do the following:
- Locate the backed up profile folder on your hard drive or backup medium (e.g. your USB-stick) and copy it to the hard drive. Any target location on your hard drive will do, but it is advised that you put it in the default profile location, as explained in the first paragraph.
- Open up profiles.ini in a text editor by double clicking on it. The file is located in ~/.mozilla/firefox/profiles.ini~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles.ini
- In profiles.ini, locate the entry for the profile you've just moved. Change the Path= line to the new location.
- Change the line with the text IsRelative=1 to IsRelative=0.
- Review the changes made and save profiles.ini.
- Start Firefox.
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