How can I sync firefox-based profiles between systems without using firefox sync?

Question

It seems like the firefox profile has grown and grown over time. It currently takes up a huge amount of space in GBs and it also contains symlinks.

I really just want to be able to sync my add-ons/plugins and their respective configurations from one laptop to another. Mainly the ones with configuration: noscript, firefox multi-account containers, and the browser theme which I change depending on arbitrary reasons.

Answer 1

Why not syncthing ~/.mozilla folder through Syncthing?

Comments

@Echedenyan I think the question is about syncing selected parts of the profile only, for example the plugins and their configurations; not the whole profile.

---

Well, would be a similar process just changing the folder I mentioned with the specific for the addons. I cannot say the same for the plugins, as in Firefox plugins are a different thing, sometimes attached to OS packages and finish in system directories.

However, there won't be possibility to restore the configurations of these addons without the whole profile where they were configured. I would just sync the folder I mentioned.

---

Yes, I think syncthing might be the quickest/best option for right now.

I started to look at the firefox source code around account sync. It does make some distinguishments between different parts of the profile to sync. But it feels like too much effort that I feel willing to give right now. So maybe someday, someone will go through that code and write something that syncs just the parts I want.

Answer 2

The quick answer is that you simply have to sync the profile folder, that is ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx on gnu/linux. You can manage profiles in about:profiles.
On the other hand if you only want to sync selected settings, I'm afraid that you'll have to handpick which files to sync. Unfortunately that folder looks like a mess, containing hard-to-decipher file names. I've found this document that describes the meaning of some (but not all) of the files. For instance, I have my extensions in ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx/extensions and their settings appear to be in ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx/browser-extension-data.
I don't know any program that can do this work automatically, I mean a program that can read the profile folder and selectively pick some files only.

Comments

Yeah, the folder is kind of a sprawl... like something that too many developers have thrown features into. I just want something the feels like FHS... hehe