Firefox – Use Firefox profile manager without changing default profile

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I use different Firefox profiles for different things. (This is Firefox 16.0.2) I have one general-purpose profile that I use for normal web browsing, plus some others for other things (e.g., javascript hacking). What I want to have is two shortcuts: one that opens the general-purpose profile and one that opens the profile manager so I can choose among the other profiles. However, I want the general-purpose profile set as the default, so that if some other program tries to open a link and I don't have any Firefox windows open, it always opens the general profile.

I can't figure out how to do this. It seems that if you open the profile manager, you cannot avoid changing the current setting of what is the "default profile".

For instance, suppose I have two profiles, "general" and "other". Looking in profiles.ini I see that "general" is set as the default profile. All is well and good. I use my profile-manager shortcut and open the profile manager. I want to select the "other" profile. But there is that checkbox for "Don't ask at startup", and it cramps my style. If I check it, it opens "other" and sets that as the default profile. If I don't check it, it removes the default setting on the "general" profile and leaves me with no default, so if a program tries to open a link, it will take me to the profile manager. Neither of these is what I want. What I want is to open the "other" profile while leaving "general" as the default.

Basically, the "don't ask at startup" checkbox seems to force between two choices: open a profile and set it as default, or open a profile and make it so there is no default profile. But I want a third option: open a profile while leaving the default profile set to whatever it's already set to. Is there any way to accomplish this?

Edit: Based on some answers, I want to clarify that I do not want one shortcut per profile. No matter how many profiles I have, I want exactly two shortcuts: one that always opens the default profile, and one that allows me to interactively choose from all profiles, but does not change what profile is marked as default.

Best Answer

The only way to achieve your goal would be to write-protect your profiles.ini file after the initial setup. This way Firefox wouldn't be able to update the file leaving everything as you set it up.

  1. Set up your profiles.
  2. Select your default profile by selecting a profile in the profile manager and checking "Don't ask at startup".
  3. Mark your profiles.ini as read only.

From now on, starting Firefox without -p or -p "profile name" or -p "profile path" will always start your default profile. Opening a profile via the profile manager or the -p switch can't change your profiles.ini.

Obviously, you'd have to make your file writeable again to change things or create new profiles. Other than that you should be fine.

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