Web Browser Wednesday
There’s no doubt that your browser stores a lot of important information that could leave you in quite a bind should it disappear all of a sudden. The Firefox users out there probably have a bunch of extensions installed and configured, settings tweaked just the way they like them, obscure passwords stored that no human could possibly memorize, and enough bookmarks saved to make even a hardcore geek nauseous.
I don’t find much joy in the fact that a hard drive can crash at anytime for any number of reasons. We’ve had it happen twice this year, but fortunately for us we had backups of all our most important information. You shouldn’t even think twice about backing up your browser’s profile, and that’s why today we’re going to show you two easy and free Firefox profile backup solutions!
–MozBackup (Homepage)–
This is a small program that you can download, and on the website you’re given the choice between an installable version or a no-install ZIP version. I opted for the ZIP version because I can always keep it on my USB drive, which conveniently happens to be the place where I store my Firefox profile backup.
MozBackup is not restricted just to Firefox profiles either. It can also backup profiles for Thunderbird, Seamonkey, Mozilla Suite, and Netscape. Don’t worry, you’ll be prompted early on in MozBackup to select specifically what application and profile you want to backup.
You’ll then be able to pick exactly what you want to backup, such as bookmarks, history, extensions, passwords, cookies, and more. I’ve documented the entire process in screenshots:
(Click to Enlarge)
Once you’ve got the backup done it will create a single file that can be used to restore everything that you backed up. To perform a restoration just go back through the wizard, and on the second screen just choose the Restore a profile option instead of Backup a profile.
Tip: Close Firefox before using MozBackup, otherwise it will prompt you to do so in the middle of the wizard.
–FEBE (Homepage)–
I find this to be a rather interesting profile backup option for Firefox. FEBE (short for Firefox Environment Backup Extension) is an extension that can be used to backup important parts of your profile. Things like themes, extensions, bookmarks, preferences, cookies, passwords and more can all be saved to a single file, and restored at a moments notice.
What really makes this a fantastic choice for backing up your Firefox profile is that it has scheduling capabilities. You can choose to have your profile automatically backed up daily, weekly, monthly, or you can just set it to remind you every few days.
The first thing you’ll want to do after installing FEBE is go and setup the directory where your backups will be stored. Then from the Tools -> FEBE menu you can initiate your first backup of whatever profile items you chose in the options.
(Click to Enlarge)
As you can see this is an extremely intuitive option for backing up your Firefox profile, but MozBackup is also nice since it works with several different Mozilla applications. The choice of which backup solution is obviously up to you, but take them seriously because they could save you a lot of trouble in the future.
This is just one of the hundreds of CyberNotes we have done. You can find more of them by visiting our CyberNotes category, or by subscribing to our CyberNotes feed. We also have a full feed available if you want to receive all of our articles in your reader!
Tags: CyberNotes, Firefox, Freeware, Software, Applications, Browser, Downloads, Firefox Extensions, How To, Tips And Tricks
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I’ve always wondered why such a thing would be used, as you can simply compress your profile folder into an archive (i.e., a “zip” file). If you ever need to restore your profile, simply unzip that backup into its original location ([mozilla.org]).
I (try) to do this at least daily and it works very well – everything is backed up: stored cookies, bookmarks, addons, etc. This also offers you a way in which to revert to a previous day if your find some kind of a problem.
Have to agree with Lappy… I like my backups to be regular and therefore automated. Integrating the profile folder into my daily backup schedule works best for me.
Why do these “solutions” say “works with specific extensions”. If they backup the whole Firefox user profile folder then all extensions along with their settings should get backed up right?
Mozbackup is a windows only solution while FEBE is cross platform
i use a program called backupfox.it saves all my settings(themes,extensions,bookmarks etc)into a .Firefox that i can restore later with the program (no scheduled backups though)
Some people who ask me to help them with problems on their computers, find zipping the profile folder too difficult. Using a compression program, locating their profile… for some people it’s quite difficult. I used to recommend mozbackup, but I think from now on I’ll recommend installing the Febe extension. Great tip!
I also just backup the profile folder regularly. Works fine and is more reliable in my opinion (esp. if you keep multiple copies).
Some kind of auto-zipper with DTG appended to the created filename and auto-delete of old versions would be a great way to automate backing up the profile folder. ERUNT has this capability for its backups. I have it run twice a day with 31 days of backup on my systems.
Watch out! Be sure to test your backup system restore to see if it really restores your profile. I used FEBE and it backed it up and compressed it, but never would restore. I still use the program for auto backups, but since the backup file it saves is really a renamed zip file, I manually do the restore by changing the extension to .zip and unzip it in the profile folder.
This article was not geared for all of power users out there. This is really for all of those people who haven’t wanted to hassle with backing up Firefox before because they didn’t want to find the profile folder and such. As Satur9 pointed out, these solutions remove many of the steps that would ordinarily confuse you.
Good point! I forgot to mention that fact.
Well, these backup solutions don’t backup your entire profile since they let you select which items you want to backup. I’m guessing that the extensions it can’t backup correctly are those not located in the extensions folder in your profile. Some of them create other folders in your profile, which these backup solutions may not be aware of.
Interesting, I didn’t realize that the file it creates is just a renamed ZIP. Good to know.
I am with tlm1492 that FEBE failed for me on a recent restore but has worked for me a lot of times! Great to know that it is just a zip file! i will have to try that next time. Great tip for regular Firefox users, Ryan!
This idea in combination with another great user tip ( [cybernetnews.com] ) would make for a very powerful backup tool indeed!
For a Win98SE system, would I zip the 9nyl8vxu.default folder located at: Windows/Application Data/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/9nyl8vxu.default
Yep, that’s what you want to backup. That is the default Firefox profile.
I use a program called BackupFox and I find it works perfectly.