FireFox – Creating Profiles and Folders

One of the most powerful and useful features within FireFox is its profiles.

Each profile is sort of like what a user account is in Windows. Your profile maintains its own settings, configuration, browser history, bookmarks, plugins, passwords, themes, etc. And just like Windows, the FF browser has options that are universal to and independent of any profile. Some options will not change no matter which profile is in use.

Most people simply install FF and use the default configuration and profile. No need for anything else. This is OK, but FireFox can be used by many different users, each with their own profile. This is designed so you won’t have to worry about who cleared your history or who deleted you plugins or any other disaster one might face with multiple users.

You can also create multiple profiles for a single user. You can use one profile for work, one for research, one for personal use and whatever else you may need a unique profile for. This is an excellent way to work in order to keep workflows separate. For example, you can use one profile when conducting programming related activities in the browser with only the needed plugins and bookmarks that serve that exact purpose. Then, you can switch to another profile when you need to concentrate on your personal shopping and leisure interest, keeping all history, plugins, tabs, etc. completely separate from one another.

Clear enough? I hope so. It’s NOT that complicated. It’s actually a setup well done by Mozilla. Now let’s get into this!

Every profile has its own folder with its own data, saved on your local machine. Mozilla calls this the ROOT DIRECTORY. Here is the default location for these valuable folders.

C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

FireFox also creates a separate cache folder associated with each profile. Mozilla calls this the LOCAL DIRECTORY. This associated cache folder will have the exact same name as the Root folder. The Local Directory can be deleted and only holds temp data. It is NOT critical to the personal data in your profile. Don’t go deleting stuff just ‘cause you can though. You can find the local cache folders here.

C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

The DEFAULT naming scheme for profile folders consists of a set of numbers/letters, followed by a literal dot, followed by the name of the profile itself. Like this.

FireFox will automatically create a profile for you during the installation process. This is the one you will be using by default. If you want to keep everything as FF has declared, do nothing and enjoy FireFox. It’s already set up for you.

If you want to create different profiles for yourself or other users, here’s how.

1: Launch FireFox

2: Type about:profiles in the URL bar and press ENTER. The ABOUT PROFILES page should appear.

**Whether you already have more than one profile or not, the currently active profile will state “This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted” under its name.

3: Click the CREATE A NEW PROFILE button to access the CREATE PROFILE WIZARD.

4: Click NEXT on the Create Profile Wizard screen.

5: Here is where you can choose a name for your profile and make note of its folder location.

**By default, FireFox will save your profile in AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\FireFox\Profiles. The AppData folder exists inside of your Windows user folder.

Default locations for Firefox profiles ROOT and LOCAL DIRECTORIES:

6: OPTIONAL – If you really want to be specific, select “Choose Folder” to control where the profile will be saved.

You can create multiple custom folders anywhere on your computer for storing different user profiles. As an example, my new profile will be named “Jar Jar”. I have created a custom folder named “My FireFox Profiles” on the desktop (you can create your folder/s where ever you desire). Inside this folder, I’ve created new folders with the names of the profiles I intend to create, like so.

**This is your last chance to switch back to the default folder.

7: Click FINISH and you’re done.

Now you have a new profile and a designated folder for the profile. Repeat these steps to create more profiles. Simple!

**As far as I know, you can create as many profiles as you like and need.

***When you create a new profile, FireFox will automatically make it the default profile. The default profile will be the one that loads when you launch the browser. Change this afterwards if you need to.

****If you use a custom location when creating a new profile, a local directory will not be created, only the root directory. In this case the root and local directory are contained within the same custom folder.