Firefox Community Forum

I was positively surprised recently when the new Firefox profile manager (about:profilemanager) was introduced. https://www.tech2geek.net/how-to-use-the-new-updated-profile-manager-in-firefox-2025/ is an article about that.

However, I thought it's just a new visual UI with an in-browser switcher for the existing profiles (that I already had setup). However, it does not appear so.

The differences I see:

1. 1. 1. old profile management

• was managed by `about:profiles` or when starting FIrefox with `-P`
• is saved in `~/firefox` and the `profiles.ini` clearly and quite obviously mentions them there, so it's easy to manage them.

I also found this old support article: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles

1. 1. 1. new profile management

• automatically asks on startup if more than one profile exists
• is managed by `about:profilemanager` or with the Firefox burger menu
• seems to be saved in `~/.mozilla/firefox/Profile Groups` (Linux path here) in some .sqlite files, and I do not quite understand the format. Not mentioned in `profiles.ini`.
• also, when you change something here (even like opening a profile?), you cannot open `about:profiles` anymore, because it says "Some Firefox process has made changes to your profile, […] you need to restart Firefox", only after a restart further changes would be possible, which I find quite confusing but it also indicates somehow the features belong together?

And this seems to be the new one: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-management#w_whats-the-difference-between-profiles-and-multi-account-containers

1. 1. Questions

• What are the differences here (I may have missed)?
• How can the new profile feature save so few files? Is it technically called "profile groups"?
• And the most important: How can I migrate an old profile? (In order to use the new features and GUI etc. I quite like)

I recently downloaded Firefox and made two profiles on it from the hamburger button in the top right. I make one called "Work Profile" and another called "Personal Profile". I was trying to pin each one to the task bar separately because I would use youtube to watch videos/listen to music on one window and do my work in another. I have enabled the group profiles on taskbar so they dont show up together under the same icon and added { -no-remote -P "Profile Name"} to each shortcut in its properties>target on windows explorer.

It just keeps bringing up the choose user profile window but it doesn't even have the two profiles listed that I want.

When I open default then all my profiles are gone in the top right profiles window but if I choose default-release my profiles are there to select again. I am pretty sure firefox just has two things it calls profiles, one is for multiple installs and the other in in each install and I don't know how to fix it now as all my settings/passwords/add-ons are setup and I would like to not have to do it again.

Is there an application to get rid of 'Old Firefox Data' folder? I tried to remove it once on another machine and i lost all internet connection (needed a full Windows restore) so very nervous about this.

This afternoon, I clicked on a link from an email and for the first time got a choose a profile pop-up. I do not want this; I have read info on Mozilla and elsewhere about its purpose but it doesn't say how to just stop the pop-up - there should be an option just stop the pop-up because I don;t want to have to choose amongst options. I have started copy-pasting the links in emails and going to Chrome and will seriously have to reconsider using Firefox of this continues. I don't want to have to type about:config or anything - this should have been an opt out or opt in thing and I want out. Thank you for your help.

For roughly three months I have been experiencing issues with Twitch.tv that I do not have on other browsers. Namely, after a random period of time the site will just "go out" on me. I can keep watching streams that are open, but any attempt to open a new window or tab results in a page with no elements loaded. During this "out" period none of my chats will send, and any other attempts to interact with Twitch will fail. After a random period of time, things will go back to normal.

I've tried clearing my cache and cookies, I've tried disabling and uninstalling all of my extensions, I've tried updating the browser, I've uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox, I've tried Incognito Mode, I've tried a DNS flush, I've refreshed Firefox and it didn't work.

I have found one thing that has worked though. I created two new profiles. The first had the issues occur again, but the second one hasn't experienced any of the same issues as far as I've seen, so I think the issue is with my settings. The trouble is, I don't know which setting is the issue, and deleting prefs.js doesn't appear to reset my settings, even after restarting my browser. Is there some step I'm missing regarding deleting prefs.js?

Please do NOT suggest using Firefox Refresh, as I am NOT interested in going through all the steps again, especially when it didn't work at all the first time I tried.

Hello I got a pop up or it was new tab informing about new firefox functions. It was about profile creation and management. Now i have two profiles and cant switch back to my old one. I cant seem to be able to delete new profile to return to my old one.

I have used Firefox for years, both out of conviction and to help protect my privacy, even though I often put up with images and forms not displaying on web pages.

Then, three times in two months, after restarting Firefox, I found all my tabs, bookmarks and browser history had disappeared. The only thing I did between restarts was to run Wise Care 365 to clear some space on my laptop, something I had done hundreds of times before.

The first time the loss occurred I found I had a new profile, a feature I neither wanted nor was consulted about. At least I was able to get back to my original profile. The next two times this proved impossible.

Firefox "support" was of no use. Multiple searches produced nothing which helped. After agonising hours, I was able to retrieve my bookmarks and my Firefox browser history through Microsoft Edge. But as a writer and (award-winning) journalist I cannot afford to risk losing my research and links.

So although I disapprove of some Microsoft business practices. I am moving to Edge. If I have missed something that makes sense of this, I would be pleased to hear it. In the meantime, Mozilla needs to improve its product and customer service.

Wishing its customers well,

Francis Shennan

Running Windows 11. Recently there is a small gear symbol on the Firefox icon in the Taskbar. I don't want it there and it's irritating as hell. Apparently it has something to do with profile. I don't care what it has to do with, I want it to go away. I went to about:config and set browser.profiles.enabled to false, but every time I restart Firefox, it apparently gets set to true again.

There is no reason for Firefox to have forced this visual change on users. How do I make the gear go away permanently? The gear goes or Firefox gets uninstalled and I'll go back to Chrome.

When I do try to create, rename or delete a profile, I get the message, "An unexpected error has prevented your changes from being saved".

I have a new Windows 11 PC. I installed Firefox first from the Windows store and had problems adding a second profile. Now, I've downloaded the full installer and still have the problem after multiple uninstalls, deleting the appdata Firefox folder and re-installing. I've also tried to rename the FF folder after encountering the problem and just restarting FF. It seems to create a new folder with profiles, but I can't create or delete the profiles from the profile manager or from about:profiles.

I've also checked that the folders and profiles.ini are not in read-only. I've also tried to manually create profiles or create profiles using the command prompt. Nothing seems to work.

I am running macos 15.7.2.

Bought a faster external drive *named EXT3* and I copied my Firefox Profiles from EXT2 *previous External* to EXT3

I have added the location for the profile in /Users/username/Library/Application Support/Firefox/profiles.ini

So far so good, but when EXT2 is NOT mounted the profile won't start, but only when EXT2 is MOUNTED then the profile will start.

Also connectivity is broken then, with that I mean I can't open any sites, not even a local one.

When I look in About:profiles I see that the profile in EXT3 is active and in use.

Any idea what is going on?

Ps:

macos: 15.7.2 Firefox Version:140.5.0 ESR

I run the current version on a Dell Inspiron 15 3530 laptop using Windows 11 Pro. Today, I tried to open my profile file to back it up, but got the message attached below. I searched my computer and found the file in another location.Should I copy the file to the expected location or not?

As of yesterday morning, whenever I restart Firefox, it starts on a page that says WELCOME TO FIREFOX and nit with the tabs I had open when I last closed it, which is the norm since I started using the Firefox browser. Also, certain pages (facebook, x, nytimes, instagram, TikTok) are partially and slowly loading or not loading at all. And finally, all my saved passwords and logins have disappeared.

Hello,

I am using Firefox in Malaysia. I updated with the latest browser, but I do not see the new profile management (https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/profile-management/).

Is this feature available in certain countries?

I recently updated my browser, and it has a new profile menu, but it doesn't recognize the old profiles I made before the update that were still accessible through the About:profiles shortcut. I can still freely use the old profiles just fine, just have to access them through the old menu. I'm wondering if there is a simple way to move the old profiles to the new menu so I don't get this issue?

HI there,

Glad you folks have included an update to the 'profiles'. However, I'm having trouble with it. I previously created two profiles using 'about:profiles' function. However, only of them has mapped on to the new profiles feature. When I try to add a profile in the new way to do it, I can only create a new one, I can't transfer a pre-existing.

See attachments. One shows the new profile manager with the 'work' profile. The second shows the 'about:profiles' with both 'work' and 'life'. How to I add 'life' to the new profile manager?