How to Backup Your Firefox Profile

Firefox allows you to create multiple profiles. This is especially useful if you are using different versions of Firefox. Learn how to backup your Firefox profile so that all of your personal data will be saved if happens to your original data.

Things You'll Need

• Computer with Internet access

Instructions

Locate Your Firefox Profile Folder to Make a Backup

1. Click 'Start' and then choose 'Run' from the menu.

2. In the 'Open' line, type '%AppData%' (without the quotes) and press the 'OK' button. This will automatically open the 'Application Data' folder on your computer.

3. Locate the 'Mozilla' folder and open it.

4. Find the 'Firefox' folder and open it up.

5. Locate the 'Profiles' folder and double-click it as well.

6. Find the 'xxxxxxxx.default' folder and open it up. (The Xs represent a string of randomly generated letters and numbers that will be unique to your computer.)

7. Locate the profiles found in this folder.

Backup Your Firefox Profile

1. Close Firefox completely before making a backup.

2. Copy the profile you opened previously to another location on your hard drive or by drag and drop it onto a storage device that is connected to your computer, like a USB storage unit or external hard drive.

Tips & Warnings

• To make the size of your backup file smaller, first clear the cache in Firefox. Doing this removes files that you have accumulated while browsing that aren't needed to save your profile.

• To help prevent losing your backup, save it to a removable media such as CD-RW disc or a USB storage device.

• Download Firefox 2 at the Mozilla Web site (see Resources below).

• To use Firefox on a Windows PC, the minimum requirement is a 233 Mhz processor, 64 MB of RAM, 50 MB of free space on your hard drive and Windows 98 or greater. The minimum requirements to run Firefox on a Mac are a PowerPC G3 processor, 128 MB of RAM, 75 MB of space on your hard drive and Mac OS X 10.2. If you are using Linux, Firefox's minimum requirements are a 233 Mhz processor, 64MB of RAM, 50 MB of available hard drive space and Linux kernel 2.2.14.

• To prevent someone else from having access to your personal information, go to the 'Tools' menu and choose 'Options' and then the 'Privacy' tab. Here, you will be able to tell Firefox to delete all of your stored personal information.

• These directions were written for Firefox 2.00.2. If you are running a prior version of Firefox, some of these steps may not work for you.