Starting Firefox with a specified profile from the dock (Mac OS X)

I have different Firefox profiles for each version I have installed on my system and I know I can specify the profile name I want to use like this:

/Applications/Minefield.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -P minefield

Is it possible to create a dock icon or alias with additional parameters (just like in this article with shortcuts on windows)? That way I could have as many profiles as I want and wouldn't see the profile manager everytime I start the browser.

Tomas Markauskas

Posted 2009-11-25T16:32:38.127

Reputation: 639

Answers

It's a bit more work to do this on mac but this is what you want:

Managing Multiple Firefox Profiles in OS X (via Internet Archive WayBackMachine)

The custom Firefox icons are still available from Gnome-Look.org

ricbax

Posted 2009-11-25T16:32:38.127

Reputation: 4 894

2Thanks, it works. The only thing I don't like is that I have two icons on my dock now. One for the launcher and one for the app itself. – Tomas Markauskas – 2009-11-25T17:22:05.047

Script Editor based solution was quite slow for me, so I looked for an alternative.

I ended up creating an application bundle with a bash script inside - see details at Using Firefox profiles on Mac OS X.

Nickolay

Posted 2009-11-25T16:32:38.127

Reputation: 282

1I suggest open -a Firefox.app --args [...] as it's more robust (installation path, binary name). – Daniel Beck – 2011-02-11T21:02:10.780

2@DanielBeck: Thanks for the tip! Somehow I missed it when you posted it. Note to other readers: you will need the -n flag (as in open -n -a Firefox.app --args -no-remote -P ...) to open multiple instances, as by default open focuses the existing application. – Nickolay – 2012-01-03T00:16:56.607

This non-script alternative still works in Mavericks 10.9.1 and, when coupled with the custom icons mentioned in the other answer, is an especially copacetic solution. – martineau – 2014-02-07T16:32:42.760