Open your profile with the instructions below. Go up one level in the file manager. Select the folder you were just in, and copy it to a thumb drive.

Type about:support in the address bar and press enter.

Under the page logo on the left side you will see Application Basics. Under this find Profile Folder. To it’s right press the button Show Folder. This will open your file browser to the current Firefox profile. Now Close Firefox.

You can use this button to go to the current Firefox profile folder:

• Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder (Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder)
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

See:

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Recovering+important+data+from+an+old+profile
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox

When you refresh/reset Firefox then a new profile is created and some personal data (bookmarks, history, cookies, passwords, form data) is automatically imported. The current profile folder will be moved to an "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop. Installed extensions and other customizations (toolbars, prefs) that you have made are lost and need to be redone.

It is possible to recover data from the "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop, but be cautious not to copy corrupted files to avoid carrying over problems.

How long ago did you do the Refresh or Reset that generated the Old Firefox Data folder? If it has been several weeks or months, it may be worth poking around a little more to see whether your copied data has a fresher profile folder.

First, make sure you can view hidden files and folders: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hidden-files

Next, if your old C:\Users\username\ folder* was copied over somewhere, drill down into that to:

AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

Can you find anything in there from around the right time, or just new stuff?

* If you were on XP before: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

My old Windows computer is dying but still usable. I have a lot of Firefox bookmarks on it which I want to transfer to my new computer on which I've just installed Firefox. To apologise in advance: I'm elderly and not good at computers so I'll need simple step by step instructions in words of one syllable, or a reference to where such instructions can be found. I'm afraid I understand about one word in three in the thread so far.

I've been able to transfer my Thunderbird data to the new computer; is the process of transferring Firefox data similar? Is there a profile folder somewhere for Firefox?

Hi AlexBell, yes, Firefox uses a profile folder. It's a bit more deeply buried than Thunderbird's but the concept is similar. Please see this article for more information on how to find it: Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data.

Here's another thread on transferring bookmarks: How can I copy Firefox bookmarks from an old hard drive to another computer?

Thanks for your help. I'll track them down and see if I can understand them.

AlexBell said

Thanks for your help. I'll track them down and see if I can understand them.

Progress report.

I was able to track down the Firefox profile folder on the old computer. I then copied that folder to a flash drive put the flash drive into a slot on the new computer and opened the profile file found the Firefox profile folder on the new computer and opened it, and copied the contents of the profile folder from the flash drive into the profile folder on the new computer, overwriting the files as I went.

This is no doubt an uncouth way of doing it, but it works, and at least (even at my level of ignorance) I had some idea of what I was doing. I seem to have all the bookmarks on the new computer that I had on the old computer.

Thanks again for your help.

edited the leading space which thru a horz scrollbar into this thread.