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How to create dedicated profiles for Firefox and Nightly to avoid profile corruption.

If you frequently switch between your normal version of Firefox and Nightly, you may experience profile corruption issues when browsing certain websites. A simple solution would be to have dedicated [[Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data|profiles]] for each of these channels. This article explains how to do this. *For more information about creating and managing profiles, see the article [[Use the Profile Manager to create and remove Firefox profiles]]. *If you don't have Nightly installed on your computer: [[Template:downloadnightly]] You should wait until after you have created a dedicated profile before you launch Nightly. {note}'''Note:''' You cannot create or manage profiles while Firefox is running. You should first quit all running instances of Firefox, Beta, Firefox Developer Edition or Nightly. Then follow the instructions below, applicable to your operating system.{/note} <!--We didn't use showfor for the operating systems in case they have to view this article on another computer, since we're asking them to quit all running instances. The command line option to start a specific profile is documented here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options#-P_.22profile_name.22 --> ''The following steps are for Firefox Nightly but you can use the same procedure to create dedicated profiles for other versions of Firefox.'' =Windows= #Press {key [[Image:Windows Key]]}+{key R} on the keyboard. A Run dialog will open. #Enter '''firefox -ProfileManager''' and click {button OK}. The Profile Manager (Choose User Profile) window will open. #Select {button Create profile...}, name it '''Nightly''' and click {button Finish}. #Clear the ''Use the selected profile without asking at startup'' checkbox. This will cause the Profile Manager to appear at startup, unless you use a custom shortcut to start Firefox with a specific profile. #Click {button Exit} to close the Profile Manager. #You can now update the shortcut you use to start Nightly, so that it automatically opens with your new Nightly profile: #*Right-click the Nightly icon on your desktop and select {menu Properties}. #*Update the ''Target'' field by adding a space, then <code>-P Nightly</code> after the path to the Firefox Nightly executable, which in most cases, would be as follows:<br><code>"C:\Program Files\Nightly\firefox.exe" -P Nightly</code> <!-- consider adding this, at least for Windows, but also for Mac and Linux? ==If your normal version of Firefox is your default browser== After you have updated your Nightly shortcut to use a dedicated profile, start your normal Firefox version, which will open the Profile Manager. Next, select the profile you normally use (such as '''default'''), checkmark the ''Use the selected profile without asking at startup'' box and then start Firefox. This is useful so that email links, html files and Internet Shortcuts will be opened without asking you to choose a profile; however, you need to be careful to use only shortcuts updated with dedicated profiles when starting other versions of Firefox.--> =Mac= #Open the ''Terminal'' application. #Type or paste in the path to Firefox, followed by '''.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -profilemanager'''. For example, if Firefox is installed in the recommended location, you would enter '''/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -profilemanager'''. #Select {button Create profile...}, name it '''Nightly''' and click {button Done}. #Clear the ''Use the selected profile without asking at startup'' checkbox. This will cause the Profile Manager to appear at startup, unless you start Firefox with a custom launcher. #Click {button Exit} to close the Profile Manager. {note}You can find a useful tutorial to set up custom launchers here: [http://spf13.com/post/managing-multiple-firefox-profiles-in-os-x/ Managing Multiple Firefox Profiles in OSX]. It's best to follow all steps in the "Creating the scripts" section, including the "edit Info.plist" step. Also, you'll want to change the path in the do shell script to point to the correct .app file for the Firefox channel you want to target.{/note} =Linux= #Open the ''Terminal'' application. #Enter '''firefox -ProfileManager'''. #Select {button Create profile...}, name it '''Nightly''' and click {button Finish}. #Clear the ''Use the selected profile without asking at startup'' checkbox. This will cause the Profile Manager to appear at startup, unless you start Firefox with a custom launcher. #Click {button Exit} to close the Profile Manager. #If you want individual icons to launch specific profiles, you will need to set the command line for your new launcher. To do this, set the ''command'' text field to target the executable file, likely '''/usr/bin/firefox''', and add the -P PROFILE_NAME parameter, replacing ''PROFILE_NAME'' with the specific profile. You can now start using Nightly safely with its own dedicated profile. If you are a Sync user, Sync will keep the profiles up to date as normal.