Command line arguments

You can use command line arguments to start your Mozilla application with special behaviour.

How to use command line arguments

For Windows users

• Go to "Start -> Run" and enter the file path and file name of the application, followed by the command line arguments. For example,

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -ProfileManager

(including the quotation marks). In this example the file path to the installation directory is C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox, the file name of the Firefox application is firefox.exe, and the command line argument we are using is ProfileManager. You should place a hyphen (-) directly before each command line argument that you wish to use.

• If you regularly wish to start your application using command line arguments then you can also create a shortcut on your Desktop which includes them. To do this, right-click on an open space of the desktop and choose "New -> Shortcut". Follow the wizard to create the new shortcut. When it prompts you for location (not name), type the file path and file name followed by the command line arguments, exactly as in the example above.

For Linux and Mac OS X users

• Open a Terminal window and type what you want to execute. On Linux, the shortcuts to your Terminal window will vary in location depending on your desktop environment. On Mac OS X go to your Applications/Utilities folder and choose "Terminal". Enter the path to the application, then a space, followed by a hypen (-) and the command-line argument. For example, to start the Firefox with the Profile Manager on Mac OS X, you would enter the following:

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

List of command line arguments (incomplete)

See also the external links at the bottom of this article.

Command	Result	Example
profile "<path>"	Starts Firefox with profile located at the given path.	firefox.exe -profile "E:\myprofile"
P "<profile name>"	Starts Firefox with a given profile name (profile name is case sensitive).	firefox.exe -P "Joel User"
<url>	Launches Firefox and opens the given URL(s).	firefox.exe "www.mozilla.org|www.mozillazine.org"
safe-mode	Launches Firefox without loading extensions or themes.	firefox.exe -safe-mode
no-remote	Enables Firefox to run with multiple profiles; used with -P. Firefox 2 and later.	firefox.exe -no-remote
height <value>	Sets height of the startup window to <value>.	firefox.exe -height 600
width <value>	Sets width of the startup window to <value>.	firefox.exe -width 800
ProfileManager	Starts with Profile Manager.	firefox.exe -ProfileManager
CreateProfile	Create a new profile	firefox -CreateProfile test
console	Starts Firefox with a debugging console.	firefox.exe -console
jsconsole	Starts with Javascript Console.	firefox.exe -jsconsole
inspector <url>	Starts with the DOM Inspector.	firefox.exe -inspector http://www.google.com/
chrome <url>	Loads the specified chrome.	firefox.exe -chrome chrome://inspector/content/inspector.xul
new-window <url>	Loads a URL in a new browser window.	firefox.exe -new-window <url>
new-tab <url>	Loads a URL in a new tab.	firefox.exe -new-tab <url>
install-global-extension "<path>"	Installs an extension globally.	firefox.exe -install-global-extension "C:\Temp\extension-file.xpi"

See also

• Command line arguments (Thunderbird)

External links

• Mozilla Suite's command line options: some of these apply to Firefox and Thunderbird too. The page being outdated, some command line options may not work.
• Extensions Manager's command line options: applies to Firefox, Thunderbird, and other applications that use the Extension Manager code in those two programs. (Does not apply to the Mozilla Suite.)