Firefox has recently (as of v149?) made some big changes to the way it handles Profiles. There are some welcome improvements that have been included. But also, there isn’t a smooth way to migrate existing Profiles from the legacy system into the new one.
Above: In addition to “Create a Profile”, one would hope for an “Import a Profile” button.
Note: I’m experiencing this on macOS. Some details may differ for users on other operating systems. On macOS Firefox stores Profiles here: ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles
| Legacy system | New system | |
|---|---|---|
| Switching method | Go to about:profiles to launch a profile in a new instance of Firefox |
Click a window’s upper right avatar icon, then Profile Name > select from ‘Other profiles‘ or go to ‘Manage profiles‘ |
| Extension format | ABCD1234.ProfileName(user-assigned) |
ABCD1234.Profile 1(auto-generated) |
| Profile editing | Done from about:profiles |
Done from about:editprofile |
Now, about:profiles still works in the new system, but not always – sometimes when you try to access it, it prompts you to restart Firefox once first.
From about:profiles you can set a new Default Profile, then quit and relaunch Firefox.
- You can continue using
about:profilesand always ignore the “Create a Profile” prompt when prompted. OR… - You can create new Profiles and abandon your old ones that you used before this new system was introduced.
- The problem is when you want to migrate your legacy profiles into the new system.
I’m still researching this issue. If I find a way that works reliably, I will post an answer. I suspect Firefox Sync can be a solution for profiles a user has enabled the sync feature for. I will test this. The majority of my profiles are not synced though. I also think selectively copying files and folders over manually might work, but I need to be sure about which ones. Looking into it…
