# Saving all Firefox settings **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 19, 2011, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313 "2011-08-19T14:16:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Call_Me_Shirley)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313/1 "2011-08-19T14:16:42Z")
They have put me on a virtual desktop at work. They keep resetting everything and I lose all of my Firefox settings. I have my bookmarks saved so I can restore those right away, but I keep losing everything else: add-ins, saved passwords, etc… Is there some way to save all of the settings, add-ins, and passwords? ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313/2 "2011-08-19T14:32:48Z")
What you want (ideally) is something called a [roaming profile](http://kb.mozillazine.org/Roaming_profile). I don’t use Firefox, but I’m pretty sure Firefox doesn’t support this feature yet. In the absence of this, you could always manually copy your profile folder from one installation to the other. But copying things like settings and add-ins might not be a good idea unless both Firefoxes are installed on the same place on the machine, and are running on the same architecture and operating system. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313/3 "2011-08-19T14:36:47Z")
Oh, after doing some Googling, apparently Firefox 4+ does have roaming of sorts: See [Firefox Sync](http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/mobile/sync/). Again, I don’t use Firefox and so don’t know anything about this feature. It’s built into recent versions, though, so I suppose you could try it yourself. ---
**Author:** ![olefin32](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/cab0a1/32.png) [@olefin32](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/olefin32)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313/4 "2011-08-19T17:09:54Z")
I’ve used Firefox for many years. Just save a copy of your Firefox Profile and use it when needed. [Instructions.](http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_your_profile_folder) ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313/5 "2011-08-19T22:25:27Z")
There is also a [portable](http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable) Firefox that can be ran from a USB drive so you can plug it in and have the browser and all your preferences at any computer. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313/6 "2011-08-20T01:59:45Z")
[FEBE, CLEO, and OPIE!](http://softwarebychuck.com/) CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![Cugel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cugel/32/1199_2.png) [@Cugel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cugel)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313/7 "2011-08-20T02:51:46Z")
> **[MozBackup - Backup tool for Firefox and Thunderbird](http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/)** > > Backup tool for Firefox and Thunderbird ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313/8 "2011-08-20T11:57:57Z")
I asked a similar question a few years back. The following is the advice I received, and I can confirm it works: Use Firefox Portable instead. Keep it on a flash drive, and run from the drive. > **[Mozilla Firefox, Portable (browser) | PortableApps.com](https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable)** > > Mozilla Firefox® is a fast, full-featured web browser that's easy to use. It has lots of great features including popup-blocking, tabbed-browsing, integrated search, improved privacy features, automatic updating and more. Plus, thanks to the... Edit - what **Fubaya** said ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313/9 "2011-08-20T13:18:39Z")
> [@Fubaya](#): > > There is also a [portable](http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable) Firefox that can be ran from a USB drive so you can plug it in and have the browser and all your preferences at any computer. It may not be so simple from a virtual machine, which is what the OP is using. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313/10 "2011-08-20T13:46:27Z")
Does a virtual machine not allow the insertion of a flash drive? Does a virtual machine have an allocation of hard disk space where the user can save his own files? He can save Firefox Portable to that space and run it from there. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313/11 "2011-08-20T16:37:24Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Does a virtual machine not allow the insertion of a flash drive? > > Does a virtual machine have an allocation of hard disk space where the user can save his own files? He can save Firefox Portable to that space and run it from there. Some forbid outside sources. And, yes, some places forbid downloading executable files. However, the OP seems to mention being able to keep backups, which implies they can also keep the portable version somewhere safe. Still, Firefox Sync is a better solution, in my opinion. They can even delete Firefox entirely, and you’ll still have everything. ---
**Author:** ![KlondikeGeoff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3e96dc/32.png) [@KlondikeGeoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KlondikeGeoff)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313/12 "2011-08-21T18:40:21Z")
If I can submit a semi-hijack, I have been stumped for a long time. I have Thunderbird 3.1.12 and all I want to do is now and then copy mail in several folders from my desktop to my laptop. Win XP Sp3, BTW. I have found Profiles in Docs & Settings/my name/Application Data/Thunderbird. I tried to copy the entire Profile folder to a 1 GB thumb drive, but that is not big enough. So, I moved down the Profile folder to Mail. There it gets confusing, as it shows other than my main ATT folder for my Yahoo, Google and Hotmail accounts. That is OK, but when I look at my Worldnet.ATT folderthere are several folders, ending in 1,2,3 & 4. Inside each of these are some, but not all of the folders I have on my desktop. Clicking on any of these folders that I know have mail in them, it shows nothing. I can’t believe Mozilla makes this so damned complicated. It is easy enough to export and import my Address Book (or Booikmarks in Firefox), sy why the merry hell can’t it be easy to export and import just what is in my various mailboxes in Local Folders? In these subfolders, I do see Profile.js. Is that, by any chance, what I need to copy over? What am i missing here? ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313/13 "2011-08-21T19:21:02Z")
> [@KlondikeGeoff](#): > > If I can submit a semi-hijack, I have been stumped for a long time. I have Thunderbird 3.1.12 and all I want to do is now and then copy mail in several folders from my desktop to my laptop. Win XP Sp3, BTW. Exporting mail folders is inherently a complicated process, no matter what system you’re using. There are just too many variables to consider. (For instance, is the mail stored remotely and accessed by IMAP? Are the headers cached locally and the bodies stored remotely? If the mail is stored locally, is it in maildir format, mbox format, or something else? If it’s in a nonstandard format, to what format should it be exported so that it can be properly imported by the target system?) Simply using your file explorer to navigate to your e-mail client’s data directory and copying what you find there isn’t going to work in the vast majority of cases, whether or not you’re using Thunderbird. Maybe you could try the [ImportExportTools plugin](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/). I haven’t used it myself so I can’t vouch for it. ---
**Author:** ![KlondikeGeoff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3e96dc/32.png) [@KlondikeGeoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KlondikeGeoff)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313/14 "2011-08-21T20:00:20Z")
Thanks, **psychonaut** for relieving my mind. I thought I ws getting stupid (stupider) in my old age for not being able to figure this out. I now realize it can’t be figured out. 😃 That plugin looks interesting. I think I’ll download, install, and play around with it. Who knows, it may work. As a long-time user and fan of TB and FF, I am still disappointed they can’t make it easier, but then again, I would not want to have to rewrite all the source code. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313/15 "2011-08-21T20:19:49Z")
If you have a network drive handy, you can redirect your Firefox profile to that drive. I have my physical desktop set up that way so that my Firefox can roam without having to have my network profile roam. It’s been a while since I did it, but a little Googling should give you the procedure. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-all-firefox-settings/593313/16 "2011-08-22T06:38:54Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > If you have a network drive handy, you can redirect your Firefox profile to that drive. I have my physical desktop set up that way so that my Firefox can roam without having to have my network profile roam. It’s been a while since I did it, but a little Googling should give you the procedure. Again, if you are using plugins or extensions, this may not work unless all the computers you use have the same architecture, operating system family, and version of Firefox. You can go ahead and try, though; when you start Firefox on a new machine it tests the plugins for compatibility and will simply disable any ones that don’t match your system.