Move Firefox user settings to another folder on same machine

Question

Due to company restrictions where I currently work, My windows users folder %USERPROFILE% is space restricted.

I get a warning that I must delete files before I can log off.

Because of that, I have moved everything else out of my profile folder (maven repository, IntelliJ configuration & cache).

I need to tell Firefox to put userprofiles somewhere else on my machine (like for instance C:\ff_profiles\ ). How do I do that?

Update

Thanks to answer by harrymc, i found the information on how to tweak the file profiles.ini. Here are the exact steps I used:

Go to folder %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox

Move your profile data folder (randomly named: 0uq81z89.default) to c:\firefox_profiles\

Edit %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini to point at new location:

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=0
Path=C:\bin\firefox_profiles\0uq81z89.default

This works like a charm. Thanks everybody for contributing with answers

Answer 1

See this mozillaZine article : Moving your profile folder.

It describes several ways of achieving your goal:

• Using the Profile Manager to move your profile
• Create a new profile and copy the old one over it
• Create a new profile and migrate your old data
• Modify profiles.ini to point to the new location (Advanced)

Answer 2

Thanks to answer by harrymc, i found the information on how to tweak the file profiles.ini. Here are the exact steps I used:

Go to folder %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox

Move your profile data folder (randomly named: 0uq81z89.default) to c:\firefox_profiles\

Edit %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini to point at new location:

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=0
Path=C:\bin\firefox_profiles\0uq81z89.default

This works like a charm. Thanks everybody for contributing with answers

Answer 3

Like I commented under harrymc's answer, if you find that you want to use the profile in other places, you can also backup a compressed profile without the 'Cache' data in your %USERPROFILE% area.

The general steps would be

• Compress the profile (the one that you moved earlier to C:\)
• Leave out the Cache directory contents while compressing -- that will keep it light
• Keep the compressed archive safely some place in your %USERPROFILE% area

You can script this backup (tips in a different discussion here).
You can keep another script to open your profile in any other place.
Remember to backup and delete the profile from any other machines where you open it.

Answer 4

There are quite a few options for doing this, it's a pretty easy process. You could use an add-on like FEBE to backup and restore or you can do thin manually. Take a look here;

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles