Restore Firefox Settings

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One of the many benefits that Firefox supports is the wide variety of customizable features through extensions such as visual themes and additional toolbar options. Your settings are contained within a profile that stores your installed plugins, bookmarks, toolbar configuration and more. You may run into a situation where you will need to revert back to a previous setting to assist with browser performance or to restore default configuration settings.You will be able to retain your browser’s profile and add-on configuration to make sure the settings for your browser are optimal.

Steps

Restoring Firefox’s Default Settings

  1. Open the Troubleshooting Information page. Firefox can be set to its default state while keeping your profile information such as your features, bookmarks, browsing history, open tabs, windows, passwords, cookies and web form auto-fill information and remove other configurations set on your profile.[1] To restore to your default settings, you must first open the Troubleshooting Information page. You can do this from two ways.
    • Click on the ☰ icon located in the top right of the browser window then click on the �>Troubleshooting Information.
    • Activate the menu bar by right clicking an empty space in the window tabs at the top of the browser. Click on “Menu Bar” to reveal Firefox’s menu bar. Click on Help>Troubleshooting Information.
  2. Refresh Firefox’s settings. In the new Troubleshooting Information tab on Firefox, click on the button labeled Refresh Firefox.... You will be prompted that Firefox will remove your add-ons and customizations as well as restore your browser’s settings to their defaults. Click on Refresh Firefox to begin the backup process.
  3. Restart the Firefox Browser. You will receive a prompt reporting that your profile was imported successfully. Click on Finish and Firefox will import your preserved profile configurations and reopen with all default browser configurations.

Deleting Firefox Preference Files

  1. Open the Troubleshooting Information page. The preferences file contains program defaults for Firefox, such as the starting home page, tab configuration and more. If your web browser is facing difficulties displaying web pages properly, you will be able to reset your preferences to the default settings. You will need to navigate to your profile’s folder. You can quickly access the folder under Troubleshooting Information. You can open this in one of two ways.
    • Click on the ☰ icon located in the top right of the browser window then click on the �>Troubleshooting Information.
    • Activate the menu bar by right clicking an empty space in the window tabs at the top of the browser. Click on “Menu Bar” to reveal Firefox’s menu bar. Go to Help>Troubleshooting Information.
  2. Locate your profile’s folder. Under the “Application Basics” click on Show Folder to open a file explorer window with your profile files open. Close all instances of Firefox.
  3. Delete the preferences files. Locate the file named “prefs.js” and either rename the file or delete it.
    • Delete or rename additional preference files such as “prefs.js.moztmp” or “user.js” as well.
  4. Re-open Firefox and close the file explorer window. Firefox will automatically create a new preferences file for your profile.

Backing Up and Restoring Profile Manually

  1. Open the Troubleshooting Information page. Manually backing up your profile will allow you to store all of your Firefox profile settings and preserve them in case your profile becomes corrupted or you are planning to reinstall Firefox or use Firefox a different computer with your settings. This method allows you to backup content such as add-ons that Firefox does not provide backups for. You will need to open the Troubleshooting Information tab in Firefox to access your profile’s folder. You can open this tab in one of two ways.
    • Click on the ☰ icon located in the top right of the browser window then click on the �>Troubleshooting Information.
    • Activate the menu bar by right clicking an empty space in the window tabs at the top of the browser. Click on “Menu Bar” to reveal Firefox’s menu bar. Go to Help>Troubleshooting Information.
  2. Locate and open your profile folder. Your active profile configuration and settings are located in this folder. Under Application Basics, click on “Show Folder” to go to the profile of the currently active profile on Firefox. This will open up your profile’s folder in the file explorer. Go up one level of the folder structure to see the different folders for each profile used in Firefox. Double click on the profile folder you want to create a backup for.
  3. Back up your profile. In the file explorer, open your profile folder. Copy all the content within your profile folder by selecting all the files in the folder by holding Ctrl+A or click and drag your mouse over the desired content to back up then release the mouse button. Copy the files then paste it into a different folder. Label the folder as a backup of your Firefox profile. Once the content has been copied over, you can remove the content located in your profile to refresh its settings when Firefox is launched. Do not delete the parent profile folder otherwise you will need to create a new profile to store the content in.
    • You can store your backup folder anywhere on your computer or on removable storage such as a USB drive.
  4. Restore your profile content from your backup folder. If you are restoring to the same profile and Firefox has not been reinstalled, you can copy files over that you would like to preserve including bookmarks, extensions and themes. Navigate to the backup folder of your profile and move files from your backup folder over to your Firefox profile the content belongs to.[2]
  5. Restore your profile content to a new installation of Firefox. If you want to move your profile to a different computer or if you reinstalled Firefox, transferring your old profile will require you to create a new profile. Make sure Firefox is not currently running. Then execute the “Run” or the command prompt of your operating system to run the Profile Manager. Create a new profile by following the prompts given by Firefox.[3] This will create a new profile with a new profile window. Place the contents of the profile with the content from your backup folder. Restart Firefox for your changes to take effect.
    • For Mac users, run the terminal and enter in “firefox --ProfileManager” to open the Profile Manager.
    • For Windows hold the ⊞ Win+R to open the Run window, then in the run prompt enter in “firefox.exe -ProfileManager” to open the Profile Manager.
    • For Linux, open the terminal execute cd (Change program directory) then type in .”/firefox -profilemanager” to open the Profile Manager.

Tips

  • Run Firefox in safe mode to see if it is a problem pertaining specifically to add-ons. You can restart in safe mode in two ways. The first method is to enable the menu by right clicking a blank space on the tab bar then click on “Menu Bar” then go to Help>Restart With Add-Ons Disabled. The second method is to click on ☰ icon, then click on �>Restart With Add-Ons Disabled. You will then receive a new window. In the next set of prompts click on Restart>Start in Safe Mode. Firefox will restart in safe mode. If the browser is operating normally, the issue is likely isolated with an add-on. Try disabling add-ons you no longer need while in safe mode.
  • Try disabling plugins individually to see if this will help performance issues. Click on the menu button and choose “Add-ons” to show the “Add-ons Manager” tab. In the new tabbed window, choose the “Plugins” panel. Set each plugin to “Never Activate” in their respective drop down menus. If your browser begins to operate nominally, try activating plugins one by one to remove plugins that are no longer being used.
  • If there is an issue caused by a Firefox program file, you can uninstall and reinstall Firefox on your computer.

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/refresh-firefox-reset-add-ons-and-settings
  2. ↑ https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles#w_locate-your-profile-folder
  3. ↑ https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles#w_starting-the-profile-manager
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