I wanted to create an additional Firefox profile in Linux. It took me a little while to find out how to do it but I got there in the end.
I also wanted to create a shortcut to the additional firefox profile but it’s not as easy to do this on Linux as it is with Windows. That’s not to say it’s overly difficult. Once you know what to do, it becomes very easy.
Every time I find it difficult to do something on Linux and find a solution, I share it on this blog. I figure that, if I’ve been having problems other people will be having the same problems as well and I share the information.
How to Create an Additional Firefox Profile In Linux
I read a lot of forum posts about creating extra Firefox profiles but many of them seemed overly complicated. If you are reading this, you may have had the same problem too. I get the impression it’s possible to create Firefox profiles using the terminal but Linux newbies may find that hard to do. And why struggle? There’s an easier way.
The first step is to open up Firefox and type “about:profiles” into the address bar.
When you do this, it opens up a page that shows your existing (default) Firefox profile.
There is a button at the top of the page that’s marked “Create New Profile”
When you select it, it opens up the create profile wizard. The wizard makes it easy to create as many profiles as you want.
The first thing the wizard does is show a welcome page. The text it bears isn’t important. Just hit the “Next” button.
All you need to do is choose a name for the new profile and enter it into the box. Don’t worry about choosing a folder, the default folder is fine.
After you enter a name, just hit finish. That’s it. Job Done.
One point, it’s probably best to only use one word to name your second Firefox profile. If you want to use more than one, use hyphens between the words. If you leave spaces, it may affect the route to the file.
Your new Firefox profile will appear at the bottom of the page, underneath the default one. It will have a button that allows you to launch it in a new browser.
If you wanted to you could just bookmark the Firefox profiles page and return to it every time you want to launch the new profile. I didn’t want to do this so I added a desktop shortcut instead.
How to Create a Desktop Shortcut to New Firefox Profiles In Linux
Although I used to use desktop shortcuts a lot when I was using Windows, I don’t normally use them in Linux Mint. By default, there was a shortcut to Firefox in the taskbar. I use that instead and open most other programs from the applications list.
Adding a Firefox shortcut to the desktop seemed like the best way to make my second profile easily accessible.
It’s not hard. All you do is find the firefox application in the menu and right-click on it. Then you select the option that allows you to “Add to Desktop”
However, things are not as simple as they appear. The desktop shortcut will lead to your default Firefox profile. That’s no big deal. All you do is edit the route so that clicking on the shortcut takes you to your new Firefox profile.
The first step is to right-click on the new shortcut. This will open a box that bears the name of your new profile. It will have several tabs but should be on “Basic.”
The third box down is marked “Command.” you need to edit it.
The box will contain “firefox %U”
You delete this and enter “firefox-no-remote-P” This command is case sensitive. All the words are in small case except the “P”, which needs to be a capital letter.
Leave a space after the letter P and enter your new profile’s name. If you named your new profile “Profile2” the full route to the file would be “firefox-no-remote-P Profile2” Once you have made the changes close the page.
That’s it. Creating a new Firefox profile and shortcut is not hard, but it took me a little while to figure that out. If you are reading this blog post, I hope it helps you to avoid all the endless internet searches and scratching of the head.
