this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
456 points (98.1% liked)
Technology
88562 readers
3101 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The screeshots shows functionality that the current profile/profile launch UI already has. Choose, create, ask on startup.
Right now it's hidden behind a startup parameter. But honestly, I would prefer a UI between the current one and the new one. That screenshot looks like it would reduce usability through big spacing and suboptimal alignment. At least judging by my preferences.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles?redirectslug=profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles&redirectlocale=en-US#w_start-the-profile-manager-when-firefox-is-closed
I guess adding a picture is nice. But does it have to be that huge and prominent?
This only works on Windows. For Macs and maybe Linux, you have to run this command to bring up a different profile:
/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -p
As best I can tell, there's no way to make this into a shortcut that you could just click on. This change will be good and allow me to launch them without invoking that command in terminal several times after rebooting my computer.
On Mac:
If you want an icon you can double click on your desktop, you can put you command in a file with the extension “.command” and mark it as executable. Double clicking it will run the content as a shell script in Terminal.
If you want something that can be put into the Dock, use the Script Editor application that comes with macOS to create a new AppleScript script. Type
do shell script "<firefox command here>"then find Export in the menu. Instead of Script, choose export to Application and check Run Only. This will give you an application you can put in the Dock.If you want to use Shortcuts, you can use the Run Shell Script action in Shortcuts too.
Finally, if you want something that opens multiple firefoxes at once, chain multiple firefox invocations together on one line separated by an ampersand. There is an option you have to use (--new-instance I think?) to make Firefox actually start a complete new instance.
I made this into a shortcut on Mac OS Panther the year Firefox came out (2004). This has been possible on all operating systems for decades
You've always been able to navigate to
about:profilesas wellOn Windows, I had two shortcuts--one each for a profile. It became my workflow and annoyed me when I couldn't do that on a Mac. I didn't always want my work profile to open by mistake, check into systems, etc. when I only wanted the home one, for instance.
Why couldn’t you do that on a Mac? You can edit the shortcut path and add the flags and parameters there.
I was never able to figure a way to do this. I could link to the executable but not modify the shortcut to allow for flags.
The "Use the selected profile without asking at startup" checkbox in the dialog is not there on mac?
I hadn't known that this was a method. My entire workflow has been changed.
Bro is still on Windows 7