How to get password out of Firefox on old hard drive?
September 14, 2007 8:08 AM   Subscribe

How can I get a saved password out of Firefox on an old hard drive, connected to the computer via USB?

I have the hard drive in an external case and can connect it to my computer via USB. I know when you're running Firefox, you can view saved passwords. I need to get my username and password for a site off of it.

(I installed a new hard drive and this particular site does not seem to have a functioning "forgot password" link.)
posted by jesirose to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)
 
You don't say what OS your running, so I'm going to assume Windows.

Firefox stores all the user settings in a profiles directory. On my system it's at:
Documents and Settings/Brian/Application Data/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/4xi2f0yd.default/
(the final directory will vary)

If you backup the Mozilla directory above and then replace it with the one from your old system, you should be able to launch Firefox and see your old information. When finished, you can restore the backed up dir.

So:
Exit firefox
Rename Documents and Settings/Brian/Application Data/Mozilla to Mozilla-old
Copy the Mozilla directory from the old HD to Documents and Settings/Brian/Application Data
Run firefox, get the passwords.
Exit firefox, delete the Mozilla dir, rename Mozilla-old back to Mozilla.
posted by bitmage at 8:17 AM on September 14, 2007


Response by poster: Thank you very much! I will try that when I get home.
posted by jesirose at 8:43 AM on September 14, 2007


Response by poster: Actually, would there be any harm in just keeping that old profile on the new system? Then I would have my bookmarks and themes too right?
posted by jesirose at 8:44 AM on September 14, 2007


Mozbackup makes this a breeze. Also makes it easier to monkey around with multiple profiles.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 8:54 AM on September 14, 2007


I don't think keeping the old profile will cause any issues. You can keep the -old version around for a while, just in case.
posted by bitmage at 9:10 AM on September 14, 2007


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