Apple Support need the pathway to our profile on Time Machine
Apple Support are restoring one of our iMacs after a total rebuild. They need to go into our Time Machine backup and find the pathway to the P-list (?) to restore our profile to a newly downloaded copy of Firefox. We cannot risk migrating a complete copy of the old Firefox in case of corruption. Hopefully, that explains the problem? Many thanks.
All Replies (4)
Firefox uses two locations for the Firefox profile folder.
Location used for the main profile that keeps your personal data (Root Directory on about:profiles).
- ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>
Location used for the disk cache and other temporary files (Local Directory on about:profiles).
- ~/Library/Caches/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>
In Mac OS X v10.7 and later, the "~/Library" folder in the Home directory is a hidden folder.
Thank you for replying so promptly. Unfortunately I cannot locate the folders and files you describe, either in Time Machine or on the iMac. What am I getting wrong?
You do know that "~/Library" (/?) in the home directory is a hidden folder?
- /Users/<user>/Library/
You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.
- Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Folder/Directory: Show in Finder
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data
Thanks for all the help so far. Just to repeat myself for clarity, I want to rebuild an iMac totally wiped to correct lots of issues and reinstalled manually by an Apple engineer. We don't want to simply reimport the problems by using a complete Time Machine rebuild as usual. We want to select specific data and copy that into the new version. However even using:
'"Finding your profile without opening Firefox:
Click the Finder icon in the dock. On the menu bar, click the Go menu, hold down the option or alt key and select Library. A window will open containing your Library folder. Open the Application Support folder, then open the Firefox folder, and then the Profiles folder. Your profile folder is within this folder. If you only have one profile, its folder would have "default" in the name."'
I am struggling. Before examining the rebuilt iMac with the Apple engineer, I am looking at another healthy machine to get my bearings. I can find the Firefox folder I need in the software running the iMac, using the info above. What I cannot locate is any sign of Firefox when I search that machine's Time Machine backup. I can see all the other apps. but Firefox. I have looked into the Mozilla folder, as well. What am I missing?