Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles

 Source: http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles

Mozilla Firefox stores all your personal settings, such as bookmarks, passwords and extensions, in a profile folder on your computer, in a location separate from the Firefox program. This article explains how to back up your profile, restore it, or move your profile to a new location or computer. 

Locate your profile folder

The default location of the Firefox profile folder is %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\.

• %APPDATA% is shorthand for the C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\ folder (Windows 7/Vista) or the C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\ folder (Windows XP/2000), which depends on your Windows user account name.

• xxxxxxxx represents a random string of 8 characters.

You can locate your profile folder using these instructions:

Windows 7 and Vista

1. Click the Windows Start button, and type %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ in the search box at bottom of the Start menu, without pressing Enter.
2. A list of profiles will appear at the top of the Start menu. You can click on any of the profiles (e.g. xxxxxxxx.default) to open it with Windows Explorer.

Windows 2000 and XP

1. Click the Windows Start button, and select Run....
   
   
   
2. Type in %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ then click OK.
   
   

Windows Explorer will open the Profiles folder, which contains a folder for each profile.

Backing up your profile

To back up your profile, first close Firefox if it is open and then copy the profile folder to another location.

1. At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Firefox button (File menu in Windows XP) and then click Exit.
2. Locate your profile folder, as explained above.
3. Go to one level above your profile's folder, i.e. to %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\
4. Right-click on your profile folder (e.g. xxxxxxxx.default), and select Copy.
5. Right-click the backup location (e.g. a USB-stick or a blank CD-RW disc), and select Paste.

Restoring a profile backup

1. At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Firefox button (File menu in Windows XP) and then click Exit.
2. If your existing profile folder and profile backup folder have the same name, simply replace the existing profile folder with the profile backup, then start Firefox.
   Important: The profile folder names must match exactly for this to work, including the random string of 8 characters. If the names do not match or if you are restoring a backup to a different location, follow the steps below.

Restoring to a different location

If the profile folder names do not match or if you want to move or restore a profile to a different location, do the following:

1. Completely close Firefox, as explained above.
2. Use the Firefox Profile Manager to create a new profile in your desired location, then exit the Profile Manager.
   Note: If you just installed Firefox on a new computer, you can use the default profile that is automatically created when you first run Firefox, instead of creating a new profile.
3. Locate the backed up profile folder on your hard drive or backup medium (e.g., your USB-stick).
4. Open the profile folder backup (e.g., the xxxxxxxx.default backup).
5. Copy the entire contents of the profile folder backup, such as the mimeTypes.rdf file, prefs.js file, bookmarkbackups folder, etc.
6. Locate and open the new profile folder as explained above and then close Firefox (if open).
7. Paste the contents of the backed up profile folder into the new profile folder, overwriting existing files of the same name.
8. Start Firefox.