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How do I move my firefox profile from one android device to another?

  • 7 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Malice

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Hello,

As the title reads, I'm trying to keep my browser settings including all the tweaks I have painstakingly made to "about:config" as well as the extensions.

I have done this before on a windows machine and it's quite straight forward in just having to copy the profile folder to the firefox installation in the appdata directory on another machine.

I have gained root access on both devices and a root permissioned file explorer to copy the profile to an SD card that I can trasnfer between the phones. Once the profile folder is copied to the data/data/org.mozilla.firefox/files/mozilla directory and the fresh installation of firefox executed on the new device, firefox instantly crashes.

What am I missing?

Hello, As the title reads, I'm trying to keep my browser settings including all the tweaks I have painstakingly made to "about:config" as well as the extensions. I have done this before on a windows machine and it's quite straight forward in just having to copy the profile folder to the firefox installation in the appdata directory on another machine. I have gained root access on both devices and a root permissioned file explorer to copy the profile to an SD card that I can trasnfer between the phones. Once the profile folder is copied to the data/data/org.mozilla.firefox/files/mozilla directory and the fresh installation of firefox executed on the new device, firefox instantly crashes. What am I missing?

Chosen solution

Hi

I recommend that you reach out to our developers directly at https://matrix.to/#/#fx-android-community:mozilla.org

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All Replies (7)

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Hi

You are not going to be able to do this on an Android device in that way without risking losing the data permanently an/or damaging the device.

You can use Firefox Sync to port over your bookmarks, user credentials and browsing history. The other elements will need to be reset manually on the new device.

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Seburo said

Hi You are not going to be able to do this on an Android device in that way without risking losing the data permanently an/or damaging the device. You can use Firefox Sync to port over your bookmarks, user credentials and browsing history. The other elements will need to be reset manually on the new device.


So what's the point in having a profile on android if it's not movable?

Was that not the intended purpose of such a feature?

Is there other files else where on the device that also need to be moved to make this migration successful?

I don't have 8+ hours to make all the tweeks of the previous installation on the new device.

Modified by Malice

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To do that you would need to root your device, not something that we can recommend or support here.

Likewise with about:config, changing Firefox pref from the about:config page can sometimes break Firefox or cause strange behavior.

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Seburo said

To do that you would need to root your device, not something that we can recommend or support here. Likewise with about:config, changing Firefox pref from the about:config page can sometimes break Firefox or cause strange behavior.

What?

I'm not asking for a "recommendation"…

I already mentioned that both devices are rooted and the file explorer has root access. Clearly that's the case or it wouldn't be possible to extract the profile folder from the root directory on the first device and move it to the same spot on the second. I'm also not asking for help with the about:config settings which I've already taken the liberty of adjusting to my preference.

All I need to know is if there are additional files that need to be moved and if so where so that I can save myself multiple hours of painstakingly adjusting everything by hand again. I'm willing to take the risk in exchange of time because worst case scenario I can always uninstall and reinstall firefox on the second device again.

I know this is possible because I've done it before on windows and after an hour spent googling there is no such information available for android.

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Chosen Solution

Hi

I recommend that you reach out to our developers directly at https://matrix.to/#/#fx-android-community:mozilla.org

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Unless the developers post here that's not at all helpful. The amount of time you've spent going in circles I could have wasted installing everything over again from scratch.

Modified by Malice

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Problem was never resolved and seburo was not helpful at all. Not sure why a solution to this was chosen by him when all he did was take an entire day to tell me to ask someone else in such a way that requires an additional account be setup to do so.

Complete waste of time. I instead stayed up to 3:30 AM installing everything from scratch again and going through the monotonous process of sifting through hundreds of about:config preferences setting them to exactly the same as my previous device.

Fail.

Modified by Malice