CyberNotes: Share a Firefox Profile Between Ubuntu and Windows
Web Browser Wednesday
One of the new things in Ubuntu 7.10 is the ability to read and write to NTFS formatted drives, which is great for Windows XP and Vista users. What that means is that you can create a Firefox profile in Windows and set it up so that Ubuntu uses the exact same profile.
Why would that be nice to have? Any bookmarks, extensions, and options you configure in Windows will be used in Ubuntu as well. You won’t have to spend extra time trying to setup a Firefox profile just for Ubuntu, which for me makes this trick a must!
Here’s what you have to do:
- Call up the terminal in Ubuntu, and type firefox -profilemanager at the prompt:
- You should be presented with the Firefox Profile Manager which we’ll use to create a new profile. After you press the Create Profile button you’ll need to click Next on the following screen.
- Here you’ll want to type in the name of the new profile, and once you’ve done that click the Choose Folder button:
- This is where you need to hunt down the location of your Firefox profile on your Windows partition, which in my case was labeled by default in Ubuntu as “sda2″. The profiles are located at Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ on Windows XP/2000 or users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ on Windows Vista. After you select your Firefox profile folder click the Open button.
(Click to Enlarge)
- Now you can finish up the profile creation process. When you’re taken back to the Profile Manager, select the new profile that you just made, and start Firefox. If you check the Don’t ask at startup option, Firefox will always use that profile as the default one.
See, I told you it was simple! The same type of thing can be done with Mozilla Thunderbird, but I thought Firefox was a good place to start. Enjoy having all of the same extensions, bookmarks, and settings in your Windows and Ubuntu versions of Firefox! 
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Tags: CyberNotes, Firefox, Freeware, Software, Browser, Firefox Tweaks, How To, Mozilla, Settings, Tips And Tricks, Ubuntu
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Interesting idea. What would happen if either OS used an extension that was only for that OS? Would it cause a crash?
Nice tip…but where was this article a month go when I was swearing at Ubuntu, trying to get my FF profile onto it from Windows
If only I’d known it was so easy!
it is good that ubuntu has the ability tread write to ntfs partitions out of the box. it was a pain installing ntfs-3g driver for full permissions to windows partitions. having done that i had already imported my profile. But this is a nice tip.
Gee, that’s actually easier than the way I used to do it. (It involved manually editing some files, which was a pain in the ***.) I knew about the profile manager but I never knew that it could do this. Ah well, yay for hidden Mozilla features!
This trick should also work with Mozilla derivative products such as Flock, Instantbird and more. Imagine the possibilities!
Good question. C’mon, who’s willing to give it a try?
Sweet tip!
Firefox just crashes on start. I had a few extensions that made the Ubuntu not work, so I ended up copying the folder and removing extensions in safe mode. Extensions like IE Tab and the like.
It depends on how complicated the extensions are that you’re using. Most extensions probably just won’t do anything, but some could definitely make the browser crash. You can always disable certain extensions as you switch between the operating systems.
I love that Ubuntu now supports both reading and writing to NTFS drives. I also thought that I may still have some troubles with Vista drives because of the complicated permission system, but it was no trouble at all.
That’s why I’m excited to see all the branches off of Mozilla products. There’s so much that you can do with them all, and stuff like this helps bridge the gap for Windows users. If more apps were able to do profile sharing between operating systems then I’m sure more people would be willing to at least try Linux.
Guess we know what happens when there’s an incompatible extension. You could, however, just boot Firefox into safe mode when you’re on Linux and disable some of those extensions. Then when you’re back on Windows you can re-enable them.
My experience with sharing a profile has been that the addons/extensions end up being corrupted and no longer load on either system. Great idea, but it needs work. Major shame that firefox can’t share profiles between versions/architectures and systems
This is the easy part you should see what I had to do to make a unified lightning(thunderbird’s calendar extension) .xpi that worked in both Vista 32 bit and Ubuntu 64 bit so that I could boot into either vista or ubuntu at school and still be able to schedule homework and tests. Let me know if you’d be interested in a tutorial for that, if so I’ll make a howto.
Another option is Google Browser Sync (http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/browsersync/). I’ve been using it for a long time now to share settings between copies of Firefox running on various PCs, including Ubuntu. Works like a charm: bookmarks, browser options, even some cookie settings. I’ve become so spoiled by it that I can’t even consider switching back to IE.
Thanks for TIP. I have adopted similar approach for all my dual booting machine. This could only be achieved after great NTFS auto support from GUTSY Gibbon. You can also apply to common download folder for both profile where downloaded documents could be shared
Can someone please write what windows-extensions could cause an Ubuntu-Firefox to crash..
Thanks.
It really depends on the extensions that your using, because I have over 10 installed and haven’t had a single problem.
That sounds pretty interesting. I would think that it would be as simple as sharing the Thunderbird profile, but I guess that’s not the case?
I’ve used that a bit in Firefox, but it has been known to cause some performance problems. So I keep my distance now.
It’s tough to know right off the bat, but I’m sure there are some of the obvious ones like IE Tab. If you’re having problems try posting your list of extensions and I’ll see if there are any that stand out to me.
When I tried this trick, it detected everything OK but none of the add-ons worked. When I copied the profile to a folder in the Linux partition and set that as the default, it worked fine.
That’s odd, I had no problems with my add-ons working. It’s especially weird since you just copied the profile and it worked fine, which indicates that it wasn’t a bad extension. Must just be some sort of glitch.
If the bookmarks are enough for you, all you need is the Foxmarks extension. I have 2 machines and one uses Feisty and the other dual boots with Gutsy and Simply Mepis. Foxmarks keeps all bookmarks synched.
I think it would be better to use Ext2 Installable File System For Windows (http://www.fs-driver.org/download.html) to make your linux drive show up in windows. Why? because any time there is a improper shutdown of Xp, NTFS puts a lock on the drive. Ubuntu will not mount a drive that has a lock on it.
I have found it easier to keep a third FAT32 partition on my system. I use the Google Browser sync extension for tabs, passwords, history, and cookies. Then I use the FEBE extension to just back up my extensions to my FAT32 drive. It works ok for me.
Thanks for the great article.
That is a solution that I highly recommend for users, but that can cause some unneeded overhead for Firefox as well if you’re only using your profile between Windows and Linux on the same computer. Foxmarks has to frequently sync your bookmarks, which can slow down your browsing from time to time. If you’re just on the same computer I would consider sharing your profile.
That’s a good point, but it’s not often that my Windows abnormally shuts down. It’s not a bad idea to keep a separate FAT32 partition though, and you could even just store your Firefox profile on that partition. Then setup Windows and Linux to access the profile on the FAT32 partition following most of the steps outlined above.
I run ‘firefox -ProfileManager’ as required but only get a new instance of firefox … anyone know whats happening?
Shut down other firefox windows before running Profile Manger!!
I learn something new every day … thanks for this tip BTW!
There are too many things that can go wrong with this scenario.
Frankly, I prefer Google’s Browser Sync Extension.
It continuously synchronizes your Firefox settings – including bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords – across your computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across different machines and browser sessions.
That’s true, but that extension has been known to cause heavy memory and performance usage. So I try to stay away from it.
I had written a similar article sometime ago, which involved modifying the configuration files manually. You may want to check it at http://www.smart-techie.com/bl.....g-systems/
Extensions are shown in ubuntu but are not working
Some extensions may not work. It’s dependent on whether the developer made it so that they work on all platforms.
When I enter firefox -profilemanager in the terminal, instead of opening up the firefox Choose User Profile Box, it opens the firefox program. How can I get to the profile manager?
Sounds like you already have Firefox open when trying to do that? Try closing all instances of Firefox.
Problem solved!
Thanks Ryan
Hi Ryan,
Sorry to bother you again, but I have a new problem!
I was able to complete the process for both Firefox and Thunderbird. I then rebooted in windows and everything was working fine, I had even added some bookmarks and folders while I was in Ubuntu and the changes showed up in xp.
But when I tried to start both programs in Ubuntu, I was told that the programs where already running. I can start them using the default user but not under the new user.
I have gone back to windows, restarted both applications with no problem. I then made certain that both programs where closed, did a complete shutdown and rebooted
in Ubuntu with the same result,i.e. “Firefox/Thunderbird is already running”. And they still both work under the default user.
Do you have any idea why this is happening.
Thanks
Bob
.
Hi Ryan,
My son, who first introduced me to Linux, just resolved my problem.
My xp drive was not mounted. It is now mounted permanently and everything
is working fine.
Regards
Bob
Glad you got it all working great now Bob!