Working With Your Data

This chapter will help you get bookmarks, passwords, and other personal settings moved into Firefox from elsewhere, or transfer them to some other program or location.

Mozilla Firefox stores all your personal settings, such as bookmarks, passwords and extensions, in a profile folder, which is stored on your computer. To back up your profile, restore it, or move it to a new location or computer, you can move or copy the profile folder.  There are also add-ons available which can help you do this.

Note: Firefox must be closed down while copying files between profile folders.

Firefox stores information such as bookmarks and personal settings separately for each user. Backup and restoration may be done per-user or for all users, as preferred.

Locating Your Profile Folder

Firefox stores each profile in a folder on your hard drive. In order to back up or restore your profile data, you need to know the location of these folders.

Backing up Your Profile

To back up your profile folder in Firefox, follow these steps:

1. Completely close Firefox as follows:
   
   • Windows users: From the menu at the top of the Firefox window, select File > Exit.
   barQuit FirefoxQuit
   • Mac OS users: From the menu bar, select Firefox > Quit Firefox.
   at the top of the Firefox windowFile ExitQuit
   • Linux users: From the menu at the top of the Firefox window, select File > Quit.
   bar ExitQuit Firefox
2. Locate your profile folder, as explained in this chapter, under Locating your profile folder.
3. Right-clickHold down the Ctrl key while you click on your profile folder, and select Copy.
4. 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.

• Mac OS and Linux users should use the standard Copy and Paste methods for your system.
  

Restoring a Profile Backup

1. Completely close Firefox, as explained in Backing up Your Profile above..
2. 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:

1. Completely close Firefox, as explained above.
2. 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.
3. Locate the backed up profile folder on your hard drive or backup medium (e.g., your USB-stick).
4. 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.
5. Start Firefox.

Restoring to a Different Location - Advanced Users

Instead of the above, advanced users may prefer to do the following:

1. 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.
2. 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 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
3. In profiles.ini, locate the entry for the profile you've just moved. Change the Path= line to the new location.
4. Change the line with the text IsRelative=1 to IsRelative=0.
5. 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

6. Start Firefox.

Importing From Internet Explorer

The first time you run Firefox, it will automatically ask you if you want to import data. If you chose not to or if you wish to do it again, you can start the process again.

1. At the top of the Firefox window, click the File menu, and select Import.
   
   
   
   
2. Firefox can import settings and information from many other browsers. It will list browsers on your system that it can import from. Select Microsoft Internet Explorer, then click Next.
   
   
   
3. Firefox will list the types of settings and information it can import. Generally, you will want to import everything. Select the items you want to import, then click Next.
   
   
   

             You should tick the settings/information you wish to import.
   

   • Internet Options: Various settings, including your home page. Since Firefox and Internet Explorer have different features, Firefox won't be able to import all of your settings.
   • Cookies: Small files stored on your computer by some websites that are used to keep you logged in, store your options, or do other things.
   • Browsing History: Information on the sites you have visited.
   • Saved Form History: Text you entered in text fields on websites.
   • Saved Passwords: Usernames and passwords for websites you told Internet Explorer to remember. Note that you cannot import passwords from Internet Explorer 7 or higher as passwords in Internet Explorer 7 are saved in a new format that is nearly impossible for external programs to extract data from.
   • Favorites: Web pages you have saved in your Internet Explorer favorites.
4. Click Finish. The items you selected should now be imported.