Run a New Firefox Window with a Temporary Profile and Add it to the Ubuntu Menu

On Ubuntu, right-clicking on the Chromium browser icon you are shown 3 options:

Open a New Window
Open a New Window in incognito mode
Open a New Window with a temporary profile

Contextual menu for the Chromium Browser on Ubuntu 16.04 with Unity

The Firefox browser just offers two options:

Open a New Window
Open a New Private Window

Contextual menu for the Firefox Browser on Ubuntu 16.04 with Unity

Here’s how you can add a script to get a new Firefox window with a temporary profile and add it to the actions to the Firefox contextual menu in the Ubuntu Unity menu.

The following script launches a new Firefox window with a temporary profile. The profile is created in a temporary directory that is removed when the script exits, using an exit trap. I also use the enhanced bash strict mode.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

SOURCED=false && [ "$0" = "$BASH_SOURCE" ] || SOURCED=true

if ! $SOURCED; then
  set -euo pipefail
  IFS=\n\t'
fi

profiledir=$(mktemp -d -t firefox-temp-profile.XXXXXXXXXX)
function cleanup {
  rm -rf "$profiledir"
}
trap cleanup EXIT

firefox -profile "$profiledir" -no-remote -new-instance

exit 0

#!/usr/bin/env bash

SOURCED=false && [ "$0" = "$BASH_SOURCE" ] || SOURCED=true

if ! $SOURCED; then

set -euo pipefail

IFS=\n\t'

profiledir=$(mktemp -d -t firefox-temp-profile.XXXXXXXXXX)

function cleanup {

rm -rf "$profiledir"

}

trap cleanup EXIT

firefox -profile "$profiledir" -no-remote -new-instance

exit 0

You can save this script as /usr/local/bin/firefox-temp-profileand make it executable with:


 $ sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/firefox-temp-profile

Now you can run the command firefox-temp-profile and you will get a new window with a temporary profile.

To add an action to the contextual menu^[1]I am mostly following this AskUbuntu answer.:

copy the firefox.desktop launcher from /usr/share/applications/ to ~/.local/share/applications/:
$ cp /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/firefox.desktop
Edit the new file:
- Add the new action new-tempprofile-window to the Actions entry:
  Actions=new-window;new-private-window;new-tempprofile-window;
- Add at the end of the file:[Desktop Action temporary-profile-window]
  Name=Open a New Window With a Temporary
  Exec=firefox-temp-profile
Remove the old icon from the Unity Launcher by right-clicking it and choosing Unlock from Launcher
Re-add the new icon by searching for Firefox in the Activities menu and dragging the Firefox icon to the Launcher