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Profiles - Where Waterfox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data

All of the changes you make in Waterfox, such as your home page, what toolbars you use, extensions you have installed, saved passwords and your bookmarks, are stored in a special folder called a profile. Your profile folder is stored in a separate place from the Waterfox program so that, if something ever goes wrong with Waterfox, your information will still be there. It also means that you can uninstall Waterfox without losing your settings and you don’t have to reinstall Waterfox to clear your information or troubleshoot a problem.

How do I find my profile?

  • Click the menu button menu button, click Help and select Troubleshooting Information. The Troubleshooting Information tab will open.
  • Under the Application Basics section next to Profile Folder, click Open Folder. Your profile folder will open.

Finding your profile without opening Waterfox

  1. Click the Windows Start button, and select Run….

  2. Type in: **%APPDATA%\Waterfox\Waterfox\Profiles** then click OK. A window will open containing profile folders.

  3. Double-click the profile folder you wish to open. If you only have one profile, its folder would have “default” in the name.

What information is stored in my profile?

Bookmarks, Downloads and Browsing History:

  • places.sqlite This file contains all your Waterfox bookmarks and lists of all the files you’ve downloaded and websites you’ve visited.
  • bookmarkbackups This folder stores bookmark backup files, which can be used to restore your bookmarks.
  • favicons.sqlite This file contains all of the favicons for your Waterfox bookmarks.

For more information, see Bookmarks in Waterfox and Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer.

Passwords:

  • key4.db
  • logins.json

Your passwords are stored in these two files. For more information, see Password Manager - Remember, delete and edit logins and passwords in Waterfox.

Site-specific preferences:

  • permissions.sqlite
  • content-prefs.sqlite

These two files store many of your Waterfox permissions (for instance, which sites are allowed to display popups) or zoom levels that are set on a site-by-site basis (see Font size and zoom - increase the size of web pages).

Search engines:

Personal dictionary:

Autocomplete history:

Cookies:

  • cookies.sqlite A cookie is a bit of information stored on your computer by a website you’ve visited. Usually, this is something like your site preferences or login status. Cookies are all stored in this file.

DOM storage:

DOM Storage is designed to provide a larger, more secure, and easier-to-use alternative to storing information in cookies.

  • webappsstore.sqlite Information is stored in this file for websites
  • chromeappsstore.sqlite This file stores information for about:* pages.

Extensions:

Security certificate settings:

  • cert9.db This file stores all your security certificate settings and any SSL certificates you have imported into Waterfox.

Security device settings:

  • pkcs11.txt This file stores security module configuration.

Download actions:

  • handlers.json This file stores your preferences that tell Waterfox what to do when it comes across a particular type of file. For example, these are the settings that tell Waterfox to open a PDF file with Acrobat Reader when you click on it. For more information, see Manage file types and download actions in Waterfox.

Stored session:

Toolbar customization:

User preferences:

  • prefs.js This file stores customized user preference settings, such as changes you make in Waterfox Options dialogs. The optional user.js file, if one exists, will override any modified preferences.

Containers:

Working with profiles