Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

why do I have old data files when I have not done a reset?

more options

I have never done a reset of Firefox, but now have three "Old Firefox Data" folders on my desktop (labeled Old Firefox Data, Old Firefox Data 1 and Old Firefox Data 2). Looking at some of the files in these folders, I see that the Documents sub-folders contain the most recent Word documents I have saved, which seems to indicate these "old data" folders are actually being updated on a real time basis. This seems counter-intuitive, is confusing and concerning. I would prefer to delete these folders, but don't want to lose data. Please advise.

I have never done a reset of Firefox, but now have three "Old Firefox Data" folders on my desktop (labeled Old Firefox Data, Old Firefox Data 1 and Old Firefox Data 2). Looking at some of the files in these folders, I see that the Documents sub-folders contain the most recent Word documents I have saved, which seems to indicate these "old data" folders are actually being updated on a real time basis. This seems counter-intuitive, is confusing and concerning. I would prefer to delete these folders, but don't want to lose data. Please advise.

All Replies (1)

more options

Firefox might use the Reset feature automatically under some circumstances, but that should be very rare...

You can check your currently active Firefox profile folder location using this page:

Help > Troubleshooting Information > "Show Folder" button

Usually you will find the files under a path similar to the following, so not actively using any of the folders on the desktop:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\profile.folder

Assuming that is correct, it's still an excellent question why you have recent files in the Old Firefox Data folder, and perhaps more importantly, why on earth would your Documents folder be in there, since that is normally in a completely different location??