Firefox containers let you separate your browsing activities into color-coded tabs for banking, work and personal browsing. Each container is isolated from the others, so you can access sites logged into different accounts. This article explains how to enable and use the Firefox containers manager to open containers from the main browser interface quickly.

What are Firefox containers?

Websites store data on your device. This data can be used to save your preferences or other temporary information, such as items in your shopping cart. It can also be used to identify you, keeping you signed in to the same account. Not only that, it can be even used to track you across websites. Normally, you can only delete data for some sites. Firefox containers give you full control.

Containers separate the data that websites have access to, turning each container into an isolated environment. Websites from different containers cannot communicate with each other.

Imagine you have two Reddit accounts: one for work and one for personal life. To switch accounts, you would need to log out of the first one and log in to the second one, and then repeat this over and over. With Firefox containers, you can just use both accounts simultaneously: open Reddit in a Work container tab and sign in to your work account, then open another Reddit tab in the Personal container and (starting fresh) sign in to your personal account. That's it! Reddit from the Work container will never find out about the Reddit from the Personal container. Just like if you used different browsers, but all inside Firefox.

Enable Firefox containers

1. In the Menu bar at the top of the screen, click Firefox and select Settings (or Preferences, in some cases).Click the menu button and select Settings.
2. In the GeneralTabs and browsing page, scroll down to the Tabs section.
3. Make sure the box next to Enable Container TabsUse Container Tabs is checked.

Open a new tab in a container

You can open a tab in a container from the containers panel.

1. Right-clickRight-click (or hold down the Control key while you click) or long-click the New Tab button.
2. Select a container in the list.

   

Open a link in a new container tab

You can open a link in a new tab on the same or a different container.

1. Right-clickRight-click (or hold down the Control key while you click) any link to open the context menu.
2. Select Open Link in New Container Tab.
3. Select the desired container.

   

Manage your containers

There are two ways to get to the containers manager.

• Open the containers manager from the Settings:
  1. In the Menu bar at the top of the screen, click Firefox and select Settings (or Preferences, in some cases).Click the menu button and select Settings.
  2. In the GeneralTabs and browsing page, scroll down to the Tabs section.
  3. Click the SettingsManage settings button next to below Enable Container Tabs Use Container Tabs.
• Open the containers manager from the New Tab button:
  1. Right-clickRight-click (or hold down the Control key while you click) or long-click the New Tab button.
  2. Select Manage containers in the containers panel.

Always show the container selection panel

You can make the container panel appear when you click the New Tab button, instead of just opening a No Container new tab.

1. Open the containers manager (see above).
2. Check the box next to Select a container for each new tab.

   

See also

• Multi-Account Containers
• Containers (Mozilla Wiki)
• contextualIdentities (MDN)