Hello everyone who came to our site. In one of the previous articles, we examined in detail what a browser is. Mozilla Firefox... This is the folder where all of 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 required for this browser (for example, other family members or just a separate one for work). How to do it? The Profile Manager will help us with this. With its help, you can add, rename, delete a profile, as well as set some settings.

Launching the profile manager.

Before starting the manager, check if the Mozilla browser Firefox. If you have it open, then you need to close it. Then we will use. Press it and without releasing 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. For all further actions, which we will describe below, return to this screenshot.

Let's say we want to create a new profile that would store bookmarks, a story for a job, or another family member.

Create a new Firefox profile

To do this, we just need to click on the button “ Create ..."(Number 1). The New 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 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 name of the profile is created. You can use this option. If you want to ask your own, then click " Select folder ...". And in the explorer specify the desired folder. We recommend that you create a clean, empty folder for the profile, but if you install it in a directory that contains some files, then you risk losing them when you delete the profile.

Now that we have set the name, indicated the location, click " Done". The new profile will be created and displayed in the profile manager.

Highlight the cos this profile and launch the browser. It will open in the form in which it was after the first installation: there will be no bookmarks, the history will be empty, you will not find any extensions or applications either.

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 the number 2 - " Rename».

Then we give a new name or correct the mistake and press “ OK". The profile is 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 options for deleting.

Don't delete files... If you select this option, the profile will be deleted from the manager, but all your data files will be saved on your hard disk, which can be used for a new profile in the future.

Delete files... In this case, the 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 recover anything after that. Therefore, take this fact into account when choosing this option.

Profile manager settings.

Work autonomously... If you set this parameter for a specific profile, then Firefox will start in offline, without internet connection. In this case, you can browse the sites you have visited before and experiment with your profile.

Run 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 parameter. Now, every time you start the browser, you will choose the profile you need.

On this, perhaps, let me finish. 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 next time and good mood to everyone !!!

Man is not an angel or 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

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

How can I find my profile?

How to find a profile without launching Firefox

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

1. Open the Application Support folder, in it open the Firefox folder, and in it the Profiles folder.
2. Your profile folder is 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. The File Browser window will appear.
2. Open the View menu and select Show hidden files if not already checked.
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 of your Firefox bookmarks, lists of all the files you uploaded and all the websites you 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 Restore bookmarks from a backup or transfer them to another computer.
• Passwords: Your passwords are stored in key4.db and logins.json files. For more information, see Saved Passwords - Remember, Delete, Edit Passwords in Firefox.
• Site-specific settings: The permissions.sqlite and content-prefs.sqlite files store multiple Firefox permissions (such as which sites are allowed to open pop-ups) or site-specific zoom levels (see Font size and page scale - increase the size of web pages).
• Search engines: The search.json.mozlz4 file contains the search engines installed by the user. For more information, see Add or remove search engines in Firefox.
• Personal dictionary: The persdict.dat file contains any additional words that you added to the Firefox dictionary. For more information, see How do I check spelling in Firefox? ...
• Autocomplete fields: The file formhistory.sqlite remembers what you searched for in the Firefox search bar and what information you entered in the fields on the sites. For more information, see the article Manage Firefox Automatically Fill In Forms.
• Cookies: Cookies are small pieces of data stored on your computer by the websites you visit. This is usually 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, holds the files for all the extensions you have installed. To find out 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 SSL certificates that you imported into Firefox.
• Protection device settings: The pkcs11.txt file stores the configuration of the security modules.
• File upload actions: The handlers.json file contains your settings that 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 the article Changing how Firefox behaves when a file is clicked or downloaded.
• Saved Session: The sessionstore.jsonlz4 file stores open ones in this moment tabs and windows. For more information, see Restore a Previous Session - Configure when Firefox displays your most recent tabs and windows.
• Toolbar settings: The xulstore.json file stores toolbar settings and window positions / sizes. Read the article for more information.

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

What it is

Profile - a set of settings and personal information... These are logins, passwords from social networks, themes, start page... They are recorded in files, 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 with the right mouse button, then "Properties".
On the "Label" tab, add the value "-p" through a space in the "Object" line.

Switch the keyboard layout to English.

The default suggested name is "Default User". I recommend changing it for convenience and increased security. You can write the name in Russian, but better in Latin, so that in the future there will be no disruptions in the work. Set the storage folder yourself, but this is not necessary, you can leave it at the default.

New profile shortcut

If you leave everything unchanged, when you start the browser, a manager will open, in which you will have to select a profile and click on the "Start" button. To prevent it from opening about every launch, uncheck the box next to the "No request" item.
Now the browser will not ask, but will open the selected profile.

Create separate shortcuts for different settings

Follow the sequence of these steps:

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

The described method increases the security of storage of personal information.

Launching browser with different profiles at the same time

Turn off the browser, right-click on the icon, then in the "Properties" window in the "Object" tab, write the parameter as in the screenshot:

Place a space after the "p".

Instead write down the name of the created profile.
Click on the shortcut to open the browser. A selection window will appear. Check the desired option, click "Run".
A window with this profile will open. Minimize your browser. Click on the shortcut. In the manager, select another profile, click the "Start" button. The browser will boot with different settings.
Take a 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.

Output

Firefox has its own profile system that works like a Chrome user account switcher. Each profile has its own bookmarks, settings, extensions, browser history, cookies and other data. For example, you can create a profile for work and a separate profile for personal use.

Mozilla hides Firefox's profile manager without making it visible as part of the interface, like in Chrome, for example. But, if you want to use different browser profiles with your settings and data, Firefox allows it.

Containers with multiple accounts in Firefox

Mozilla has another, more streamlined solution if you just want to keep parts of your browser separate from each other. The extension is called Firefox Multi-Account Containers and is made by Mozilla themselves. This extension allows you to select a "Container" for each open tab. For example, you can launch tabs in the Work container when you are working and the Personal container when you are not working. So, if you have a separate set of work accounts and personal accounts, then you can simply switch between containers without logging in and out of each website.

While this does not completely replace the need for profiles (bookmarks, browser history and extensions are shared between containers), it allows you to have separate login state and cookies for each container.

How to create and switch between profiles

Mozilla Firefox now allows you to manage profiles at runtime, without the need to use the Profile Manager available in older versions. To access this feature, enter " about: profiles»In the Firefox address bar, and then press Enter. You can bookmark this page for more easy access in the future if you like.

If you haven't viewed Firefox profiles before, you will probably use the "default" profile.

To create a new profile, click the Create New Profile button.

In the "New Profile Wizard" window that appears, specify a descriptive name for the new profile so that you can remember what it is for. For example, you can name it "Work Profile" if it is for work.

To start Firefox with a new profile, first click the "Set as default profile" button in the profile. Once it becomes your default profile, close all open Firefox browser windows and restart Firefox. It will launch with the selected default profile.

To switch back to a different profile, go back to profiles: click Set as Default Profile for the profile you want to use, and then restart Firefox.

If you no longer need a profile, you can click the "Delete" button to remove it from your system. Keep in mind that this will delete all data saved in the profile, including its bookmarks, saved passwords and extensions.

How to use multiple profiles at once

You may have noticed that the About Profiles page has a button “Launch another browser with this profile”. However, this button does nothing when using Firefox's default configuration for handling profiles. By default, Firefox only launches one profile at a time. You need to close and restart your browser to switch between profiles. But by slightly changing the shortcut you use to launch it, Firefox can launch multiple profiles at the same time.

To enable multiple Firefox profiles at once, you must start Firefox with the option -no-remote... To do this, you need to edit the shortcut in the Taskbar, on the Desktop or in the Start menu, which is usually used to launch Firefox.

For example, if you use a shortcut on the taskbar to launch Firefox, right-click the Firefox icon in the taskbar, right-click Mozilla Firefox from the pop-up menu, and select Properties.

In the Properties window, on the Shortcut tab, place the cursor at the very end of the text in the Object field, and then add -no-remote to the end of the text. The Object field should look something like this:

"C: \ Program Files (x86) \ Mozilla Firefox \ firefox.exe" -no-remote

Close all open Firefox browser windows and then restart Firefox using the shortcut you just changed. When you have done this, you can return to the page about: profiles and click the "Launch another browser with this profile" button. Firefox will open a new browser window with the selected profile.

Using the old profile manager

You can also do everything we talked about with the old Firefox profile manager if you like. It also allows you to create custom shortcuts that open the Firefox Profile Manager and launch Firefox with specific profiles if you like.

First, you need to close Firefox completely. Then you need to start Firefox with the key -p.

• On Windows: Press Windows + R, type firefox.exe -p in the Run window that appears, and then press Enter.
• On Mac: open a terminal window - press Command + Space, type Terminal and press Enter to do this from Spotlight. IN command line enter /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -profilemanage r and press Enter.
• On Linux: open terminal and run firefox -profilemanager command.

You will see the Select User Profile dialog box. By default, one user profile will be created named "default". You can use this window to create additional profiles, rename existing ones, and delete them.

If you want to always see the profile selection when Firefox starts, which will allow you to select a profile every time you click on the Firefox shortcut without using a special command, you can disable "Run selected profile without prompting". This will make Firefox ask which profile you want to use until you enable this option.

You need at least one profile to use Firefox. Each profile has its own settings, extensions, bookmarks, history, cookies and everything else. Keep this in mind. If you delete the default profile, you will lose all Firefox browser data (unless you are using Firefox Sync).

When you create a new profile, you can give it any name you want. The wizard will show you where the profile will be stored. By default, they are placed in your Firefox profiles folder. account user with a prefix of eight random letters and numbers.

Select a profile and click Launch Firefox to launch Firefox with the selected profile. When you first start Firefox with a new profile, you will see a welcome message.

Close Firefox and start it again to switch between profiles. If you have disabled the "Run selected profile without prompting" option, then Firefox will ask which profile you want to use before launching. You can also leave this checkbox and start Firefox using the radio button -p or -profilemanager to access the hidden profile manager whenever you want.

For ease of use, you can create a shortcut that will also open Firefox using the profile manager. For example, on Windows, you can create a copy of the Mozilla Firefox shortcut on your desktop, rename it as "Mozilla Firefox - Profile Manager", then add a space and -p at the end of the text in "Object". This shortcut will now open Firefox using the Profile Manager, assuming Firefox is completely closed when the shortcut is launched.

By default, Firefox doesn't work like Chrome. He wants you to use one profile at a time. However, if you want, you can use several profiles at once.

To do this, you just need to start Firefox using the key -no-remote... You can do this in the Run dialog or Terminal, or simply modify an existing Firefox shortcut. For example, if you created a shortcut to the profile manager, you can simply add -no-remote to make it work -p -no-remote at the end of the Object field.

Start Firefox with this switch, in other words, double click on the shortcut you just created and it will not check if Firefox is already running. Instead, it will ask you which profile you want to use and create a new one. Firefox process with this profile.

You can use this process to open Firefox with any number of different profiles, although each profile can only be used by one copy of Firefox at a time. If you try to open the same profile a second time when it is already running, you will see an error that the profile is already in use.

Note. If you see an error using a profile while Firefox is closed, you may need to visit the task manager and kill the firefox.exe process from there, forcibly close it if it is running in the background.

Everything should work as you expected. However, while Chrome does make it really easy to see the profile you are using in your interface, Firefox does not make this information very visible. To do this, you can set a different theme for each profile to visually distinguish them.

If you ever need to find out which profile you are using, you can find this information on the page “ about: profiles».

You don't need to use Profile Manager to troubleshoot your Firefox profile. Instead, you can use the Reset Firefox feature to get Firefox browser from initial settings without losing important things.