Join the Mozilla’s Test Days event from Dec 2–8 to test the new Firefox address bar on Firefox Beta 134 and get a chance to win Mozilla swag vouchers! 🎁

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How can I prevent Firefox profiles from becoming large and taking up space on the C drive for each user?

  • 5 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by nukeit108

more options

I have many users logged into a Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Server (Terminal Server) and all of them use Firefox. Each one of their profiles get very large due to their Firefox profiles.

Seems that all the space being taken up by the cache folder. (C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\Profile.default\Cache)

Is there a way to enforce a policy within the program to clear the cache for each user either each time the browser is closed or when the user logs off?

I have many users logged into a Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Server (Terminal Server) and all of them use Firefox. Each one of their profiles get very large due to their Firefox profiles. Seems that all the space being taken up by the cache folder. (C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\Profile.default\Cache) Is there a way to enforce a policy within the program to clear the cache for each user either each time the browser is closed or when the user logs off?

Chosen solution

hello nukeit108, you can set the preference browser.cache.disk.enable to false, then no cache files will be written onto the disk (doesn't affect cached entries in RAM).

please also refer to http://kb.mozillazine.org/Locking_preferences

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (5)

more options

Chosen Solution

hello nukeit108, you can set the preference browser.cache.disk.enable to false, then no cache files will be written onto the disk (doesn't affect cached entries in RAM).

please also refer to http://kb.mozillazine.org/Locking_preferences

more options

You can use Clear History when Firefox closes to clear the cache and set a fixed maximum for the disk cache to prevent the cache from getting to large.

Some prefs that you can consider to lock:

  • Tools > Options > Privacy : History: [X] Clear history when Firefox closes > Settings
  • privacy.clearOnShutdown.cache
  • privacy.sanitize.sanitizeOnShutdown
  • Tools > Options > Advanced > Network > Cached Web Content
  • browser.cache.disk.smart_size.enabled
  • browser.cache.disk.capacity
more options

This helps for the user I am logged in as, but not all users that using Firefox on the computer. Is there a way it can be configured for all users?

more options

when you lock the preferences with the mozilla.cfg file in the firefox program folder as it's described in the mozillazine kb article above, it should apply for all users...

more options

The article was perfect. Creating the mozilla.cfg file allowed me to specify the preference for all users.

Thank you!!!