Move profile "Storage" folder
When I looked into why it was taking so long to backup my FF profile, I realized it was because their are over 21k files my backup software has to compare.
The majority of these are in the "Storage" folder -- apparently local/offline storage for various sites.
I've already moved the cache to a non-synced location using browser.cache.disk.parent_directory and would like to do the same with "Storage".
But I can't seem to find any info on what pref would allow me to do that. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
Chosen solution
I don't think there is a setting to relocate that folder. Have you considered creating an exception in your backup software, if it has that feature?
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Chosen Solution
I don't think there is a setting to relocate that folder. Have you considered creating an exception in your backup software, if it has that feature?
Thanks. That was going to be my solution if an organic FF one was not available.
Seems a shame that its not available in the config since it's been recognized for a while that "Storage" would be better in a location that was not part of syncs and backups (cf. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1395705).
Would this be a simple setting to add or is there more to it?
The secondary profile location is for unimportant temporary data (disk cache and startup cache and safe browsing data and thumbnails for the Firefox Home page) and data stored in storage is important as this is about storing persistent data (indexedDB) from extensions and websites and for internal use.
If I'm reading it right, a lot of the contributors in the above referenced bug report seem to be saying the opposite. To quote Rainer Meier (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1395705#c7) "I think web application caches and web caches in general are of class "local profile data". If the user logs on to the same system it's nice to have them available but it does not matter if they are deleted. If deleted it might affect first access to a page (cache) or offline capabilities but no user data is lost. ...If the storage folder is deleted, it's just re-created and populated."
I realize that some users may want/need to make sure the data stored by a particular site is maintained, but for many it is just a lot of extra files to deal with. I'm not saying FF needs to change it's default behavior (that's a debate for people much higher than me), just that users be given the option.
Anyway, I realize this isn't the forum to debate this, so I will just mark jscher2000's answer as the best possible solution for now.
My understanding is that the need for storage folders arose from the creation of scriptable DOM Storage to work around the limitations of cookies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_storage). Local storage data is handled like cookie data (for example, if you block cookies, the site also cannot use local storage, and the storage database files are deleted when you clear cookies and site data).
Cache is a different beast altogether, created to address the bottlenecks imposed by dial-up network connections that were 1000x slower than a modern broadband connection.
This is not to say that old storage databases should linger indefinitely if you prefer to retain cookies. Maybe Firefox has or needs some kind of idle time cleanup for old/empty storage databases.
Note that these days /storage/default also stores configuration data for about pages (e.g. about+preferences) and extensions data (moz-extension+++)