MultiFirefox 2.2

New!

  1. Brief instructions to get started are here.
  2. MultiFirefox appears to work just fine on OS X Lion

About MultiFirefox

MultiFirefox is a small launcher utility that allows you to run multiple versions of Firefox side-by-side.  It helps you set up multiple profiles (one or more for each version of Firefox), remembers your last launch preferences for easy launching, has auto-updating built in for when we make improvements, and is 100% open source, MIT licensed.MultiFirefox

It is written natively in Objective-C, but was originally written in Python and wxPython.  Posted below are links to all of the pertinent downloads.

MultiFirefox has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times since its inception, and discussed on Lifehacker and made their top downloads, was a staff pick on Apple’s downloads site, and is even used by some of the Firefox development team at Mozilla.

Download

Older Python Release

The original source code for MultiFirefox 1.0 was released for Python and wxWidgets/wxPython.

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  • ax

    Works well on OSX 10.6.7. Install all your Firefox versions in the main Applications directory and append each with the version number: Firefox3 Firefox4 etc..

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  • Stobbej

    Hi, the renaming did the trick, thanks a lot!

  • Stobbej

    Hi, the renaming did the trick, thanks a lot!

  • jomy

    Awesome

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  • http://twitter.com/baronetto Panos Spiliotis

    Thank so much!

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  • WhenRomanceSmoked

    I’m running 3.6.19 firefox on a mac and while it will let me dual boot it won’t multi-session for me on tumblr.  After turning firefox off, suddenly all my bookmarks are gone, as are my add-ons and saved passwords.  I just want to go back to my regular old firefox and not run multiple instances and use session manager again because I frequently have 10+ tabs open.  I just don’t really know what to do and I’m kind of sad because I think I’ve lost so much of my stuff so if you could help I’d be really grateful.  Thanks.

  • http://davemartorana.com Dave Martorana

    All the different versions of Firefox store their profile information in the same place. So if you used Firefox 3 with a profile for 3, then opened Firefox 5 directly, it’ll remember the last profile used was the Firefox 3 profile and use that.

    Point is, somewhere there is your normal profile with all your bookmarks, etc., and you can easily hook them back together using MultiFirefox one more time. Give that a try and if it doesn’t work, hit the contact link above. We’ll try to figure it out via email. :)

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  • Anonymous

    Thanks for this utility Dave, this is great!

    Is there any way to warn me if I click directly on the Firefox icons? So if I do, a warning pops up reminding me to launch Firefox via MultiFirefox (so I can select the right profile)..?

  • http://davemartorana.com Dave Martorana

    I can’t imagine there is – not without actually modifying Firefox or having some program that runs constantly, watching what you’re launching… There is an update to MultiFirefox I’m working on if you’d like to try it that might be a little closer – contact me with the form on this site so I can email you details.

  • GeoRudd

    Thanks, this is a handy app. Is there anyway to make the OS remember the FireFox icon location in my dock after launching from MultiFireFox?

    I have my FireFox icon on the left side of my dock and whenever I launch FireFox it ignores the icon and creates a new one on the right side of the dock.

  • http://davemartorana.com Dave Martorana

    That’s odd! I know that it will launch multiple icons if multiple browsers are opened, but I don’t think there’s any way to control how those are launched. Sorry!

  • Matti Niemela

    Dave, this app is a life saver. I’m now and again trying to use Chrome for regular surfing, but the mouse gestures support is just so bad in webkit. Thus, I’m using FF for both webdev and surfing.

    One great little thing I hope you could add to MFF is to launch the desired profile by just doubleclicking the profile name, instead of using the Launch Firefox button. I always double click the profile but then realize it won’t work! :|

  • Raalynthslair

    I am having an unusual issue with Multifirefox… When it launches it says there is only one profile and to click “Ok” to open the profile manager… However, doing that seems to try to launch Firefox itself directly, which immediately crashes trying to start up. If I start up Firefox by itself, not through Multifirefox, it starts just fine… Only, there is NO WAY that I can from within Firefox to actually get to the profile manager. Since it is clearly impossible for me to do this through Firefox itself, and seemingly so through Multifirefox, do you have ideas or suggestions that can help me out? I am running Leopard (backed to it from Snow Leopard b/c it was nothing but constant troubles for me) and have updated it as much as the Apple Software Updater will allow/says I can/need to. I have tried to use Multifirefox with Firefox 3, 5, and 6 and have had this exact same error on all three versions (I did rename them each in the Applications directory to append the major version number so that they appear as different applications)…

    Also, is there a way to use this to run multiple instances of the same version, say two profiles in Firefox 5, for example? That would be far more useful to me in some cases than multiple versions of Firefox. And would doing this cause any potential problems that you know of? Thanks for the time and any help you (or anyone else) can provide. :)

  • Brian

    Question/feature request – is there a way for me to tell which Firefox dock icon is associated with which profile?  This app is working great for letting me get away from Chrome as my “2nd” browser, but I have two Firefox icons, one for work and one for personal.  Any way to have distinction there?

  • http://davemartorana.com Dave Martorana

    Hi Brian,

    Not without changing the icons themselves. All MultiFirefox is doing is passing some command-line arguments along to Firefox itself, basically asking it to not conflict. After that, it’s a regularly running program and will, as all programs do, display its icon on the status bar. Sorry!

  • http://davemartorana.com Dave Martorana

    Hi! You can certainly run two copies of the same version, but you would need to create two copies of that version in your Applications folder – they do have to be two separate branches of execution.

    As for the profile manager, if you understand how to use terminal to launch an application, you can type in the following at your prompt:

    /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -ProfileManager

    That should launch the profile manager for you manually.

  • Chris

    This might be not such a smart question, but is it possible to transition from an installation with two Firefox versions and MultiFirefox to just one Firefox (i.e. the standard setup) without losing your profile?

  • http://davemartorana.com Dave Martorana

    Totally. Firefox remembers the last profile you selected to run it with. So just launch the Firefox you want to keep with the profile you want to use, and then delete the other Firefox. You should be back to a single Firefox running the profile you want to.

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  • MarkP

    Spectacular! – have it on my new MAC 10.7.2 – but How does one get multiple versions installed. If I  install another version does MultiFirefox automatically recognize it?

  • http://davemartorana.com Dave Martorana

    Just name them like “Firefox 6″, “Firefox 3.02″, etc., and put them in your /Applications folder – MultiFirefox will detect them for you automatically :)

  • Leandroplay

    does not pay and a turd

  • http://twitter.com/iSteveT Steve Thompson

    This app is a gem. I use it nonstop when on the Mac. 

  • Setek

    Hi!

    Love this app, great for me as a developer, but it seems to not work on OS X Lion 10.7.2, with a mid-2011 27″ iMac :(

    If you want any more info on my system let me know!

    Cheers

  • Topop

    is this multi-version only or can we use it to switch profiles.  I can’t see any need to have different FF versions.  The latest FF works perfectly on my imac.  Switching profiles I can see some benefit in doing.

  • http://davemartorana.com Dave Martorana

    Yup, you can use it as a simple profile switcher as well.

  • Adam

    I’m new to the Mac but experienced with Windows/Linux/UNIX.  This is a great little app so I can use two firefox profiles like I do on my other systems.  One weird thing, though: I have a brand new macbook air running Lion.  When I shut down, I leave the “reopen windows” checked so it’s more like hibernate.  Chrome restarts fine, but firefox doesn’t.  Do you think that’s a symptom of how multiff is doing things, or some other issue?

  • http://davemartorana.com Dave Martorana

    This is because while you can select a specific profile to launch Firefox, it doesn’t set that profile as the default profile. When Firefox is launched by the system, it uses the default profile instead.

    If you want to change your default profile, use Multifirefox to open the Profile Manager of Firefox, and select a profile from within there – which will set the default to whichever you select.

  • Adam

     Thanks, Dave.  One of my profiles is the default, the other is different, but the OSX Lion “resume” function is not resuming either Firefox window.  It’s strange.  It may be a security setting in Firefox, I guess.

    Ultimately, what I really want is a standard hibernate.  There’s no reason to “reboot” all the time, especially considering this is UNIX under the hood.  I found that using the “pmset” from the command line has a way to set standard hibernate behavior instead of standby for sleep, so I’m using that.  For anyone who is interested, the command is “sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25″.  Mode 25 causes sleep to save the memory state to disk and then shut off power.  Resuming takes a bit longer, but on a flash drive like the MB Air it’s quite fast, and brings back exactly what was up when I shut down. 

    I don’t understand the point of going into standby and only shutting down when the battery runs out — that seems silly to me.  :)

    Anyway, Dave, thanks for a great little tool — it definitely makes working with multiple Firefox profiles much simpler and easier.

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