How do I clear firefox/cache2, if I have several profiles in place
Dear community, I have Firefox installed on Windows with serveral user profiles. I understand that firefox caches certain inormation in the Firefox/<profile name>/cache2 directories. I know, how to clear these directories. But there is also one cache2 directory next to the profile directories directly in the Firefox folder. This directory also contains several thousand files, which seem to be updated in a similar manner as the cache2 folders in the various profile directories. I would like to know, which information is stored in that "common" cache2 and how it can be cleared. Thanks
Chosen solution
if im not mistaken, a profile and a cache are linked. thus if you create a new profile, a new cache will too
in anycase, try going to this url to see more info
about:cache
Read this answer in context 👍 1All Replies (6)
Chosen Solution
if im not mistaken, a profile and a cache are linked. thus if you create a new profile, a new cache will too
in anycase, try going to this url to see more info
about:cache
One location for your personal data (e.g. bookmarks) and another location for temporary files like the disk cache.
Location used for the main profile that keeps your personal data (Root Directory on about:profiles).
- C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>
Location used for the disk cache and other temporary files (Local Directory on about:profiles).
- C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>
If you have created the profile folder in a non standard location by using "Choose Folder" then only this one location (main location and secondary location) is used for all the files and folders.
Looking in about:cache, I found that my caches are placed all over the System: Profile1 D:\Docs\Firefox\Profile1\cache2 Profile2 D:\Docs\Firefox\Profile2\cache2 Profile3 D:\Docs\Firefox\cache2 Profile4 C:\Users\MyUsername\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\12abcdef.Profile4-1234567890123\cache2
Seems, that some profiles are newer than others and it seems that the location depends on the Firefox version that created them. Anyway, I'm now happy, because I know how to clear the cache, which is located directly in the Firefox folder. Thanks for your support.
you're welcome.
btw: you can clean up your profiles. the older ones are usually done after upgrades and new profile is created.
you can use the profile manager to delete and create profiles. For me, i have cloned my current profile a few times, in case one becomes corrupted. A few weeks agao, google translate website suddenly had errors. So enabling / activating one of the clones became i life saver, per se.
about:profiles
Leo said
Profile4 C:\Users\MyUsername\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\12abcdef.Profile4-1234567890123\cache2
The number (a time stamp) is characteristic of the Refresh feature: there was a profile named Profile4 and a Refresh was performed in that profile, causing the creation of a new profile named Profile4-1234567890123.
In case you want to know when, you can convert the number to a readable date/time using a tool such as the following: https://www.epochconverter.com/
It looks that only profile4 is a valid profile as that is the only one in "AppData\Local" where Firefox normally creates its secondary profile. The corresponding location for the main profile would be in "AppData\Roaming". I don't know where the other three locations in D:\Docs with a cach2 folder are coming from. Those could possibly have been created by backup software if you didn't do this yourself as there is no need to backup data stored in the secondary profile location. The most important location where your your personal data is stored is in "AppData\Roaming".
- C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data
You can simply remove these folders, but you can also check the Firefox folders one level up to see what is in D:\Docs\Firefox