Firefox not showing data from profiles folder
Hi Friends,
At work I bookmark some sites, save my logins etc. on my pc. To save time in projects I used to copy the profile folder in a pen drive and do the work at home by creating a new firefox profile and pasting the work profile's contents there. But from the past few months it is not working. I mean I copy the profile folder from work, then create a new profile in my home pc and firefox is opened without any bookmarks, logins, history or anything else. It opens like it has been started for the first time. I did some digging and found these things. 1. On the left side is the contents of the folder which is copied from work. On the right side are the files and folders which are auto created when I select this profile and open firefox
https://i.imgur.com/NGg2YAE.jpg
Are these auto created files and folders the reason for the fresh start? The name of the profile folder which I copy is like abcd and the one which I create at home is like wxyz(auto-named). I used to copy the contents from abcd to wxyz. I hope the difference in profile names is not an issue.
2. In my home pc this is how the profile folder looks like-
https://i.imgur.com/K9De9bP.jpg
Completely different contents if we compare it to the profile folder from work.
The pc at work is xp and at home is 10. I tried the same on a system with xp also but the result was the same. Have already gone through kb topics in mozilla forums like the one below but no help
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles What should I do?
Thanks
All Replies (4)
Just a quick comment. Do not try that method. Consider using Firefox Sync, but then ensure if bookmarks are involved that you back them up manually on a regular basis as Sync sometimes badly messes up bookmarks on all your devices.
What is it you are trying to Sync or transfer ?
It realy is good practice not to share a profile with another Firefox instance or version. Try copying or cloning it, or more likely to be useful just copy individual files.
I can't easily give you links at present. The part of the profile name with the random characters is important.
The article you linked to should help you understand this.
John99 said
Just a quick comment. Do not try that method. Consider using Firefox Sync, but then ensure if bookmarks are involved that you back them up manually on a regular basis as Sync sometimes badly messes up bookmarks on all your devices. What is it you are trying to Sync or transfer ? It realy is good practice not to share a profile with another Firefox instance or version. Try copying or cloning it, or more likely to be useful just copy individual files. I can't easily give you links at present. The part of the profile name with the random characters is important. The article you linked to should help you understand this.
To be very honest and no offence to anyone I hate Firefox Sync. Also at work we are not allowed to login to our Firefox account.
I want to transfer sites visited+bookmarks mostly. If it can transfer my saved passwords too then great. How to copy or clone the whole thing? How does that work? So, say the auto created profile folder at home is wxyz should I rename it to abcd?
Sorry only just come across this again. I do not like Sync and only use it for test purposes occasionally.
If you copy a profile the you need to edit the folder name to match that of the one it is replacing. (Alternatively edit profiles.ini) You may run in to problems if the Firefox versions used differ. It is much better to change the individual files or matched pairs in the case of passwords, but again only dobit between the same Firefox versions. A safe method of transferring bookmarks even between different browsers is to use the HTML export & import method. The backup/restore method fog bookmarks has the problem that it overwrites and so you lose the original old copy.
See
- Recovering important data from an old profile <= includes passwords
- Care it overwrites => Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer
- Safe but will duplicate => Export Firefox bookmarks to an HTML file to back up or transfer bookmarks
- Mozillazine profiles.ini. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profiles.ini_file
You are likely in the wrong location for the main profile folder since the screenshot shows a cache2 folder. You need to go to \AppData\Roaming instead of AppData\Local
Firefox uses two locations for the Firefox profile folder, so make sure to look in the correct location. Location used for the main profile in "AppData\Roaming" that keeps your personal data.
- C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\
Location used for the disk cache and other temporary files in "AppData\Local".
- C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\
You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.
- Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Directory:
Windows: Show Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox