Profile folder = 17,000 files, almost 400mb

[Computerhelp1234]

My Profile folder has grown to 17,000 files and almost 400mb. Is this normal?

webappstore.sqlite is 154mb
storage folder is 95mb
places.sqlite is 31mb

What can I do about it? Does Firefox not do any self-maintenance?

Thanks for your help.

[dickvl]

You can delete the webappsstore.sqlite file and the storage folder to remove all local storage data stored there.
You can try to use the Verify Integrity button on the about:support page (Help -> Troubleshooting Information) or use Places Maintenance to vacuum the places.sqlite file.
Best is to remove all unneeded history before doing this check.
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addo ... intenance/

[lovemyfoxy]

You can also toss the "datareporting" and "saved telemetry pings" folders, although they will rebuild themselves.

[Brummelchen]

webappstore and storage folder -> Localstorage (LSO)
check subfolders, some websites saves files (eg mega) and other information. its not firefox task to clean up user wanted files or actions.

[manto]

You can stop the saved telemetry pings altogether. Go to about:config, search for these three preferences, and set them to false:

toolkit.telemetry.archive.enabled
toolkit.telemetry.enabled
toolkit.telemetry.unified

More about this: http://www.ghacks.net/2015/11/09/how-to ... ve-folder/

[RobertJ]

.
Out of curiosity I checked my webappstore.sqlite file and it was 1.2M, What is in there and why is the OP's so large?

.

[lovemyfoxy]

You can stop the saved telemetry pings altogether. Go to about:config, search for these three preferences, and set them to false:

toolkit.telemetry.archive.enabled
toolkit.telemetry.enabled
toolkit.telemetry.unified

More about this: http://www.ghacks.net/2015/11/09/how-to ... ve-folder/

Many thanks.

[dickvl]

Firefox doesn't vacuum SQLite database files, so once you have stored a large amount of data then the file stays large.
You can possibly use SQLite Manager to check the content of the file and issue a vacuum command to see if that reduces its size.

[Brummelchen]

external vacuum is futile since firefox 3.6 does itself. it might be implemented for favicons too
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1346554

possible vacuum 400megs wont help a lot, myth. and in fact it will make firefox slower to reorganize its databases next startup - or fail in complete when databse was destryoed this way

[Computerhelp1234]

Thanks to all of you for the discussion.

So, I should delete webappsstore.sqlite. Also delete the storage, datareporting and saved telemetry pings folders. All of these will apparently recreate themselves.

Then delete as much history as I can (just delete the folders in history?) and try the Verify Integrity button on the about:support page. It appears that vacuuming is part of the Verify Integrity process.

I always keep a backup of my Profile folder, so if it goes bad I can just replace it with the backup, right?

[therube]

.
Out of curiosity I checked my webappstore.sqlite file and it was 1.2M, What is in there and why is the OP's so large?
.

I believe it just depends on where you frequent & what a particular site may want to store on your end.
(Some talk about that around here, http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... #p14745136.)

[therube]

Firefox doesn't vacuum SQLite database files

I thought that current (for some time now) FF do that automatically, periodically.

[therube]

places.sqlite is 31mb

I believe places.sqlite starts out ("empty") at ~10 MB.
And then "grows" in ~10 MB increments (or the about).
So having a 31 MB places.sqlite is not necessarily out of the ordinary.

[lovemyfoxy]

But 17,000 files must be unusual. My profile is about 8 years old and I have only 2156 files. Would a profile take longer and longer to load as it grows? If not, then the size doesn't matter.

[Computerhelp1234]

therube - Thanks, I might leave places.sqlite be then and just delete the other stuff.

LoveMyFoxy - It only bothered me because I backup my profile maybe once a month as part of my overall backup strategy. It takes several minutes to copy 17,000 files. It just seemed excessive to me, and it's only going to grow from there. It's a few megabytes larger every time I backup the new one. I believe I've had this profile for about 5-6 years. I remember when it was much smaller.