There has been a lot of discussion about backing up Firefox extensions, preferences, bookmarks etc. A promising tool, MozBackup, was unfortunately discontinued. On top of all that, yesterday, after my main HDD fainted (power cable got disconnected), my firefox profile got corrupt. I had no chance but to write a tool to backup/restore my profile.

Notes
1. This is still BETA; there may be some glitches
2. This saves a complete backup of your profile, not just extensions or bookmarks.
3. It uses 7-zip commandline to create and extract archives.
4. It requires administrative rights (on NT-class Windows)
5. It has not been tested with Windows 9x/Me
6. Version 0.7+ supports Firefox and Thunderbird.
7. Version 0.72+ can exclude cache from backups.

Points
1. I've successfully restored my profile after uninstalling firefox (and deleting my profiles) and reinstalling it.
2. I've successfully transfered my profile on my second computer (backup on first pc, and restore on second).

Download
BackupFox 0.73

Screenshot (0.73)
[attachmentid=116776]

Enjoy!

Antonis

Very very sweet Raptor Well done!

Nice. I've been wanting a tool like this for my next format. Thanks.

Thanks! I was always wondering why there wasnt a lot of these kinds of programs out there.

Nice work!

nicely done.......exactly what to doctor ordered.........

if ya added support for thunderbird i would use it..

Good.

That's a great idea! I'd sure like that too, but nice work on what you have done already.. I just tested it and it's simple and easy to use.. GREAT!

right on the spot!

Very useful tool! Thanks

I'll have to try out Thunderbird and see if I can add that

wow. awesome! very handy app mr.raptor

nw_raptor before you get too far into building it could you make it as an extension isntead of a seperate program? or if you could also make it an extension that'd be great also.

great work btw

this is great... just what i'd been looking for.. thanx

Been using another tool...
But will give this a try..
Great work..

Well, the troule is... in order to restore a profile, Firefox must be completely closed. This doesn't leave too much space for an extension. Backing up with Firefox open is not recommended either...

I just tried this out. Downloaded the zip, extracted to a new directory and tried to run BackupFox.exe. I get a runtime error '50003' Unexpected Error. I tried copying the 7za.exe file to the Windows folder thinking a possible path issue. Didnt work. XP Pro SP1, power user account (i dont have admin access to this system). In case it helps you, MozBackup works fine for me, including extensions.



T

i didn't have ANY problem. i tried putting the files in different folders/locations. no problems at all.

^^welcome to Neowin
well here I also have the same problem unfortunately

You most likely need admin rights.

Thanks!

It's great. Thanks raptor.

Where does it store my backup? I couldn't find it.

Thanks! That's THE application I was looking for Firefox.
Good job.

It stored mine in the same folder I extracted the ZIP to.

And here I was just compressing the Mozilla folder under application data all this time.

I really don't see the use of this program, all you have to do is go to c:\Documents and Setting\(Username)\Application Data and compress the folder called Mozilla. Place the contents of the archive in the same folder after reformat and boom, all your stuff is saved.

It's called ease of use. Like unattend programs.

Excellent work Raptor, I always wanted something like this, its always a pain for me to get everything all over again

Cool thanks!!!

It may be slightly easier to use, but how often do you reformat? I do it maybe once a year, and it really is not that inconvenient.

It's more for the people that use the nightly builds or mess with Firefox a lot. The reason is that a profile can get messed up pretty easy with the nightlys or other experimental things.

FYI, I tried this out last night and it did not work. I backed up because I was about to format. After restoring the profile, Firefox was unusable. The app would load, but I was unable to click anything. Realizing this app is in beta, I backed up my bookmarks just in case and I only had a couple of extensions, etc... so no big deal. I was using 1.0.1 both times.

I love MozBackup and was disappointed that it was discontinued, but it's nice to see somebody create an alternative. Thanks. I'll try this app out when I have time.

Did you run Firefox once, to let it create a profile?

Wonderful application! Works very well and does what I've alway had done to backup my firefox folder - automatically.

Oh, btw: I'll be adding Thunderbird support this weekend (If everything goes as planned)!

this is excellent! thanks very much.

thanks!! so much!!

This should work just the same with Thunderbird.
I have done similar action manually and gotten it to work.
Nice app raptor.

Can't wait for Thunderbird support, then this will be a great app (not that it isn't now!) and be used by me lol

Some suggestions for you:

- Allow us to specify where to store the backup. I store my application settings backups in my My Documents folder.

- Change icon to show maybe the icon in the program otherwise it'd be confusing if I put a shortcut to it in the start menu along with the Firefox shortcut.

That's all.

As promised: BackupFox 0.7

- Mozilla Thunderbird support
- New icon so people don't confuse it with Firefox
- Added ability to save backup on other folders
- Added ability to restore a backup from any folder

Does the Thunderbird back up include the mail folder?

Everything...

Excellent work! Very useful program. Well Done!

Total disaster
unzipped and clicked to make a default profile backup
Unfortunately there is no way to prove which files are to be backed up
default directory was about 13mb in size the backup file was about 2.8mb in size
I clicked restore and bookmark,cookies and extension directory was missing
Luckily I normally make manual backups to another drive because of the extensions I install on a daily basis, so I managed to restore
One look at the restored files with backupfirefox and I noticed the name of the profile directory in my case 73u5js6y.default was missing.
BETA???

I just ran a test and he's correct.. same thing happened to me.. the whole default folder didn't get restored. It removed the one that was there (the one that it was to restore) but put nothing back. Reading the previous post I backed up first before I tested so nothing was lost, just wanted to confirm to warn others.


WinXP SP2

Ouch! Sorry for that. Good find though. There was a bug when target profile matched the backup... It should be okay now (fixed 0.7 was uploaded - link is the same).

Does it back up passwords etc?? I liked the fact that MozBackup could.