Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Weird effect when copying profile from windows to mac

  • 3 iimpendulo
  • 1 inayo le ngxaki
  • 32 views
  • Impendulo yokugqibela ngu FredMcD

more options

When copying a complete profile from a windows machine to a mac. Firefox won't save any passwords anymore. When I start Firefox up and try to access a known site with password, no question comes up!, so when i check the settings in Firefox i can see the check for saving passwords. But when I open the manager i can't find any of the saved passwords from my windows profile. And in addition new passwords made won't stay saved on the mac.

Anyone got any idea why this happens....

Additional information: when I create a new profile in firefox an try to save a new password it works without any issues.

When copying a complete profile from a windows machine to a mac. Firefox won't save any passwords anymore. When I start Firefox up and try to access a known site with password, no question comes up!, so when i check the settings in Firefox i can see the check for saving passwords. But when I open the manager i can't find any of the saved passwords from my windows profile. And in addition new passwords made won't stay saved on the mac. Anyone got any idea why this happens.... Additional information: when I create a new profile in firefox an try to save a new password it works without any issues.

All Replies (3)

more options

Some of the files in the Firefox profile may be OS-specific, meaning you may have some issues when copying between different operating systems (Windows and Mac OS in your case).

You may want to look at the documentation about Firefox profiles to see what data is stored in which file and then only copy the files that you need.

A far better option for syncing Firefox data between multiple devices would be setting up Firefox Sync on your computers. This will automatically sync your data (bookmarks, logins, passwords, etc) between multiple devices.

more options

Will try it asap and will let you know!

more options

Make sure you create a backup of your current profile first.

Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles.{web link} I use an add-on that makes backups of my user profile, Just In Case. Unfortunately, it is not compatible with the current Firefox.

Every now and then, open the profile folder and create a copy of the current profile as is to another location on your hard drive. This way you will have a backup.

If you do this each day, you will not lose much data. This should be done with Firefox Closed.

Note: In case you need to restore from these backups, you may need to overwrite old or corrupted files.