Backing Up and Restoring Profiles

Issue/Question

How do I back up and restore my bookmarks, saved passwords, and other user data in Firefox?

Environment

  • Windows

Cause

When refreshing a computer, or moving to a new computer altogether, it can be helpful to bring along the user profile to the new computer. 

Resolution

To locate and back up the profile folder:

  1. Click on the Menu button.
  2. Select the ? icon from the menu.
  3. Select Troubleshooting Information.
  4. Click Show Folder under Application Basics.
  5. Go to one level above your profile's folder, i.e. to %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\​
  6. Right-click on the profile folder (e.g. xxxxxxxx.default) and select Copy.
  7. Right-click in a back-up location (e.g. an external hard drive) and select Paste.

To restore a profile backup:

  1. 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.

Note: 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:

  1. Locate the backed up profile folder.
  2. Open the backed up folder and Copy the entire contents of the folder.
  3. Locate and open the current Firefox profile folder by following steps 1 through 4 above.
  4. Paste the contents of the backed up files into the new profile folder, overwriting all existing files of the same name.
  5. Start Firefox.
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