I went to "about:profiles" and created a new profile thinking I could copy to the new folder, but when i switched profiles I couldn't get back to the original default!

Hello. Could you explain what you meant by not being able to get back to the original profile?

Are you able to launch it from about:profiles via its "Launch profile in new browser" button? Or if it is not set as the default profile, then set it to be via the "Set as default profile" button and then restarting Firefox?

As for the newly created profile folder, were you able to delete its contents and replace them with copies of the contents of the Windows 7 profile folder, and then launch it in Firefox? (once again, either via its "Launch profile in new browser" button, or setting it as the default profile and restarting Firefox?)

None of the above. Windows 11 won't let me change any of the folders in the firefox "profiles" Can't rename, or paste content in the folders. First, I copied the profile from the old hard drive that was on the windows 7 machine to the profiles folder on the windows 11 machine. After going to "about:profiles" the old profile doesn't show up.

If I open the profiles folder in explorer, I can clearly see it there, but it is not on the screen under "about:profiles". Even if I create a new profile, and then try to copy the contents of the old file to the new profile, (Firefox closed), all I get is a warning saying I need admin permissions to do it. I created an "Admin" user and still, every time I try to do something, W-11 won't let me. I even made sure I was the "owner" of the folder, still no good. God I hate w-11!

Some of the techniques that you have tried should have worked. However, in recent months several users have reported problems with 'access denied' messages when attemting to work with profile folders on the hard drive.

One suggestion that worked for some is to create a new profile in a location that is outside of the normal Firefox profiles directory. They've then been able to copy and otherwise work with this profile folder as normal.

So here's something to try. Repeat the process of creating a new Firefox profile and then, with Firefox closed, deleting its folder contents and replacing them with copies of the backup profile folder's contents. Except that this time you create the new profile in a location that is outside of C:\Users or any other special Windows directory.

(then, once again, in about:profiles you can either launch the restored profile in a new browser, or set it as the default profile and restart Firefox.)

Ok, tried that, it worked to a point, but the "LOCK" file won't delete, same thing, and the contents I placed back in the folder did not replace every folder, but the tabs and bookmarks did not come back. There are four profiles in the old folder all with the same date, how do I know whitch one was my original folder because I have found that using "about:profiles" does not show all profiles in a folder.

'Update:' Ok, I realized you meant "outside" the traditional folders to mean say in the core "c" drive. That worked. I created a folder in the "C" drive named "profile" and Profile-1. I then made two more profiles and copied the files I had as backup until I got the complete and most recent backup. The previous was close as noted above, but lacked my bookmarks and it was older based on the tabs.

So we are good for now. I hope Microsoft stops screwing up the operating system, because now i have outlook restoration issues..... ugh!

Sam, glad the original profile has now been imported.

Unfortunately my problem is still not resolved. Although I was able to run Firefox with a folder on C:profile, it will not backup to One-drive. I've even followed their instructions and copied that folder to the one-drive folder, but since Firefox does not operate out of the folder that is inside the one-drive folder it doesn't update or sync.

If I create a folder or profile "inside" one-drive, then I'm back to square one and I cannot delete or copy to the profile inside the one-drive folder! This is insane!!!!

Again with issues! I just signed in to Firefox and verifies syncing was on, and now all my tabs are gone!!!!!!

Yes, as previously mentioned several users have reported 'access denied' type errors blocking them from being able to work with profile folders that are located within some special Windows locations. It seems that, in your case at least, the OneDrive folder is such a location.

However, are you sure that you want to store your entire profile folder in OneDrive? It isn't end-to-end encrypted, and so perhaps may not be the best place to store sensitive information.

You could instead consider Firefox's new internal backup feature, which saves a lot of user info to a backup file that can be stored locally or in your OneDrive. You can password protect this file, and it will be regularly updated by Firefox. But note that this feature may not be available for all users yet. For more information see here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-backup

Unfortunately if this feature is not available or if you do not want to use it, then you might just have to make manual backups of your profile folder. I would recommend that you do this periodically anyway, and to a local backup location and not just to a cloud location such as OneDrive.

Regarding your Firefox Sync query, sorry but I can't help there. Perhaps you could start a new question about the Sync issues you are having, or maybe someone else who sees this post here can help.