Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Missing profile for Firefox on Macintosh OSX El Capitan - can't open Firefox

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 9 views
  • Last reply by Moses

more options

The computer is a Macintosh using OSX El Capitan, and is set up for two user accounts. The first account has Firefox v53.02 and works fine. When I tried to load a new instance of Firefox into the second account (from the web-site, .dmg) and loaded it into the Applications folder and then tried to open it, it reported it couldn't find the Profile or that it was corrupted - no way to open Firefox. There are Mozilla instructions for dealing with Profiles, but they are for Windows. What do I do to resolve this for the Macintosh?

The computer is a Macintosh using OSX El Capitan, and is set up for two user accounts. The first account has Firefox v53.02 and works fine. When I tried to load a new instance of Firefox into the second account (from the web-site, .dmg) and loaded it into the Applications folder and then tried to open it, it reported it couldn't find the Profile or that it was corrupted - no way to open Firefox. There are Mozilla instructions for dealing with Profiles, but they are for Windows. What do I do to resolve this for the Macintosh?

All Replies (3)

more options

You do not need to install Firefox another time. You would only have to create a new profile for the other Mac user account. You can create a shortcut icon on the Dock for the other user to be able to launch Firefox. I assume that you can do this in Finder.

It sounds that you copied a profiles.ini file, but the profile listed in the profiles.ini file is missing or something else is wrong with profiles.ini because otherwise you would not get an error message that the profile is missing.

You can use the Profile Manager to create a new profile for the other account.

more options

The referenced document for using Profile Manager is for Windows - I need a Macintosh OS version - Help!

more options
The referenced document for using Profile Manager is for Windows - I need a Macintosh OS version - Help!

This forum software has showfor enabled which shows documentation based on your user agent. So when you go that link, it should automatically detect you are using a Mac with Firefox 53 and show you the appropriate docs. If it doesn't visit, https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles#firefox:mac:fx53