Managing Multiple Firefox Profiles in OS X Steve Francia's Epic Blog

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One of the great features of Firefox is the ability to manage multiple profiles. This is a very handy feature with many different uses. Unfortunately, it isn’t easy to do on a mac. I will show you how to setup multiple profiles on a mac that appear and run like normal mac applications so you can click on them and run them from quicksilver.

UPDATED 10/16/09 : Now working with Snow Leopard!

Firefox is a great browser in any operating system. One of the great features of Firefox is the many extensions that can alter or add functionality to the browser. If you are like me, you use quite a few extensions. While these extensions make life easier, they also slow down firefox. I use two different profiles, one with all my extensions loaded, which I use for work. And one without any extensions which I use for light browsing, watching videos and checking mail.

Setting up your profiles

So we will use the Terminal, but just once here. Fire up the Terminal, it is found in Applications << Utilities < < Terminal. And run the following:

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin --profilemanager

A window will appear. Create your profiles. I created two called “Heavy” and “Lite”. Whatever you call your pofiles, write it down and remember the names are case sensitive.

Creating the scripts

You will want to repeat the following for each of your profiles

Open the script editor

Add the following line replacing profileName with your profile name.

	do shell script "/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -P profileName"

Save the script as an Application Bundle. I called mine FFHeavy which seems to work well
Control-click the icon < Show Package Contents. A “Contents” window will appear.
Edit the file Contents < Info.plist with your favorite editor
Look for the entry < key>LSRequiresCarbon</key> <true/>

Add these two lines after that entry.

		<key>LSUIElement</key>
		<string>1</string>

Save the Script

Changing the Icon

By default your newly created script will have a “script” icon, not all all representative of what it does. Let’s change that to a more relevant icon.

You can use any image you want. I found a good one on gnome-look. Unfortunately OS X requires icons to be in the icns format. There is a handy Opensource application that can turn images into icns files. img2icns from shinyfrog. Png files work well as they are already 24 bit and transparent.

Run img2icns and drag your png file(s) onto the dock icon for img2icns. It will place the newly created icns file on the Desktop by default. “Get Info” on the script you created and drag the icon onto the icon towards the top of the get info window.

You now have a working icon and alias/script/shortcut to your profile

Anonymous

I had to search the entire web for this gem, but it was worth it! Thanks!!
Anonymous

thanks but im dragging an icns file onto the sport you mention and it does nothing.

also the new app bundle on the deskrtop, i cant drag it into the dock and then delete the icon on the desktop else it doesnt work…

any advice appreciated

cheers,
jed
Anonymous

sorry addy = jedlane.AT.gmail|com
Anonymous

OS X 10.4 users won’t be able to use that application. Instead, they can use this on-line app:

http://eisbox.net/iconvert/

Very handy for small batches.
Anonymous

the browser always loads hiden behind any other applications which are active. Any ideas???
Anonymous

So I _think_ I followed your instructions correctly. There were a few checkboxes on export (Options: Run Only, Startup Screen, Stay Open) that you didn’t mention in the article.

I was able to set the Icon and set the LSUIElement in the Info.plist. However, upon launch, the icon for Firefox in the Dock and in the CMD-Tab switcher is still the original Firefox. As I read about LSUIelement, it should allow the icon we set for the script as the icon for the app. Am I mistaken? Are we just making a pretty icon for the profile, but not one that passes on to the running app?

Thanks!
http://spf13.com Steve Francia

The icon we are creating is only for the script. The running firefox will still retain the normal icon and name.
- Anonymous
  
  Steve,
  You are the man… Profiles working like a charm.
  Cheers Rikee
- Anonymous
  
  firefox-bin quit unexpectedly.
  
  then a dialog box with profile name as window header,
  
  dyld:Library not loaded: /usr/lib/libsqlite3.dylib
  
  Referenced from /System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security
  
  Reason: Incompatible library version: Security requires version 9.0.0 or later, but libsqlite3.dylib provides version 1.0.0
  /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/run-mozzilla.sh:line131: 1136 Trace/BPT trap
  “prog” ${1+”$@”}
Anonymous

I have the exact same problem. Any fix?
- http://spf13.com Steve Francia
  
  I just upgraded to Snow Leopard and am also experiencing the same issue. I’ll post an update once I’ve found a fix. Hopefully it’s soon, cause I really grew to depend on this working.
- http://spf13.com Steve Francia
  Ok, Did some research on this. There is a problem with Firefox 3.5 in Snow Leopard, documented here and here. Unfortunately neither suggests a stable fix… However there is one, and it’s really simple…
  
  Change the script to read
```
	do shell script "/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -P profileName"
```
  Note the additional "-bin".
  
  That should work for you.
http://bluelogs.net/pvilla Pedro Villalobos

there is one, but it’ll be a little annoyng when you upgrade your FF:

On applications folder, copy and paste Firefox.app, rename it to something simple like: Firefox2.app
Right click it, choose Show Package Contents and navigate to /Contents/Resources.
Move your new firefox.icns icon there and close it.

When making the Apple Script, just change the Firefox name to the one you created, in my case the script would be:

do shell script “/Applications/Firefox2.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -P Profile”

I know it’s not the easiest, but i think it’s much better to have two different icons other then having to read each Firefox tab name when I’m alt-tabbing

BTW, thanks for this great tip
Anonymous

thank you so much…I depend on this as well, and it was driving me crazy not to be able to maintain this configuration on my new macbook pro.
thank you!!!
http://profiles.google.com/jarom.loveridge Jarom Loveridge

There is a very easy way to change the icon that Firefox will use, or any application on OS X for that matter.

1. Open Finder
2. Browse the the Applications folder
3. CMD+Click on the Firefox application
4. Select “Get Info” from the popup menu
5. Select the logo in the upper left of the resulting dialog
6. CMD+V to paste your new icon (assuming you have already copied an icon to the clipboard)

Cheers,
Jarom
http://twitter.com/mzeecedric Cedric Weber

I was using this until now without problems. Right now I am trying to set this up with Lion and Firefox 7.x and all I get is a syntax-error when trying to save in Apple-Script Editor. Any hints or ideas on that?
Enaid

Thank you for the detailed tutorial. The instructions are compatible
with the -no-remote argument available to Firefox (and Thunderbird) to
open a new instance of the application and thus be able to have multiple
profiles simultaneously open. [Just change the Applescript code to
do shell script "/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -P profileName -no-remote"]

I
was wondering the applescript can be easily exteded so tat the just
opened profile gets the focus (the current behaviour, it seems, is to
open the new profile but “Firefox” seems to be inactive and if another instance/profile of Firefox is already open, the window for the just opened profile appears at the bottom and with no focus.)