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March 05,
2006
Firefox Essentials: Get To Know Your Profile One File At A Time: The Piecemeal Approach
One File At A Time: The Piecemeal
Approach
If your profile backup is even a few days old, you may want to hang onto certain files that have changed in the meantime. Most people consider their bookmarks.html and history.dat files most important -- fortunately, these files rarely cause serious problems in Firefox, and it's almost always safe to transfer them between your old and new profiles.
If you'd like to move a more complete subset of
your profile data, use the following list as a
starting point. If you're able to move all of
these files to your new profile without causing
any problems, you may not even notice the
difference:
Of course, if you use extensions or customized config files, you definitely will notice their absence. Unfortunately, if you have a problem, there's a good chance it's lurking in one of these files -- bringing them along for the ride just might put you back where you started.
I do not recommend moving the prefs.js file separately from a full profile folder backup. Because many extensions manipulate the settings in this file, moving it without moving your extensions might cause more problems than it solves.
A final note: You can also, if the mood strikes you, move your profile to another location on your PC; point Firefox toward a completely different profile; or play various other, increasingly complicated games with as many profiles as you care to juggle. If you'd like to know more, the Mozillazine tutorial Moving Your Profile Folder will acquaint you with the tip of this profile-management iceberg.
Matt McKenzie is the editor of Linux
Pipeline. Over the years, he has broken more PC
hardware than most people will ever use -- and
he's not done yet. Contact him at mattcmp@sonic.net
with questions, comments, complaints, or
cash.
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