Linux @lemmy.ml KickassWomen @lemmy.world 1d ago

On Debian 12 + Flatpak Firefox, how do I transfer bookmarks, bookmark folders, passwords, and extensions from one profile to another

My Flatpak Firefox v. 132 freezes regularly especially if I'm on a site with lots of images and videos (like YouTube).

I was told by another user that copying everything from the original profile's directory (profile1) to a newly created profile's directory (profile2) stopped the freezing issues for them:

/home/mario/.var/app/org.mozilla.firefox/cache/mozilla/firefox/profile1/

/home/mario/.var/app/org.mozilla.firefox/cache/mozilla/firefox/profile2/

However, after copying data from profile1's directory to profile2's directory, setting profile2 as the default profile in about:profiles, and restarting Flatpak Firefox, profile2 doesn't load up any of my bookmarks, bookmark folders, passwords, or extensions from profile1—Firefox runs as if it was freshly installed (it guides me through the process of importing bookmarks, passwords, etc.).

How do I resolve this issue?

Edit 1: I think that I may have gotten it to work. I transferred files from:

/home/mario/.var/app/org.mozilla.firefox/.mozilla/firefox/profile1/

/home/mario/.var/app/org.mozilla.firefox/.mozilla/firefox/profile2/

And everything seems to be working. I'll test this out and update this post to let you guys know if it really worked or not.

6 comments

I know its antithetical to Flatpak sandboxing, but I genuinely spent hours trying to move a non-Flatpak profile to flatpak and gave up. I gave the Flatpak filesystem permissions and then it would use the usual ~/.firefox folder, even if it says it doesn't in about:profiles.

I can't explain why any of this works the way it does but it appears that Firefox is just very confused about profiles when it exists in a Flatpak container.
Are you sure you have the right folder? Does ~/.var/app/org.mozilla.firefox/.mozilla exist?

cache suggests you've only moved your cached data, not your profile.
- That's the problem, when I go to about:profiles, Firefox says that the root directories for the two profiles are:
  
  profile1 = /home/mario/.mozilla/firefox/ctd2ygzm.profile1
  
  profile 2 = /home/haque1/.mozilla/firefox/fk2o00h5.profile2
  
  But I can't find the directories for either of these profiles in /home/mario/.mozilla/firefox/
  
  I have enabled the "Show hidden files" option in Thunar and I have even launched it as root from the terminal (sudo thunar) and I still can't find these profile directories.
  
  Flatpak creates a "fake" home directory as part of its sandboxing. So what firefox sees as /home/mario is actually /home/mario/.var/app/org.mozilla.firefox/. At least on Mint, might be different in debian?
  
  Flatpak firefox stores that stuff in ~/.var/app/org.mozilla.firefox
i do this my setting up a firefox account and syncing all of those things into my account.

that way, my firefox setup is always the same from computer-to-computer as well as from computer-to-smartphone.

that fact that yours is freezing suggests that something is wrong with your setup; do you get the same behavior if you use a non-flatpak version of firefox?

6 comments