Firefox dowloads problem
I was very annoyed to find that Firefox started downloading things to the Downloads folder instead of asking me where I wanted them to go. I checked "always ask" and it still didn't ask. So, I found a solution that involved going into about:config. That solved the problem of never asking BUT now it is both automatically downloading files and asking.
How do I fix this? Why does Firefox require a default save location when I want it to ask?
All Replies (5)
This may help.
What did you change in about:config?
Terry said
This may help. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/change-firefox-behavior-when-open-file#w_changing-download-actions
What did you change in about:config?
Thank you. I already did that, though. In the about:config, I changed this to false: browser.download.improvements_to_download_panel
I had to do it twice before it stuck, but it did succeed in getting the browser to ask about downloads. It just didn't stop the saving problem.
browser.download.improvements_to_download_panel got removed in 115 and no longer has effect, you can click the trashcan at the right of its line to reset and remove this pref.
- 1822864#c1 - Remove `browser.download.improvements_to_download_panel` pref now that it has baked for 10+ versions + an ESR
You can instead use browser.download.start_downloads_in_tmp_dir to start the download in the OS TEMP folder.
Firefox doesn't wait until you specify name and location (destination folder), but immediately starts downloading the file to the default Download folder or to the OS Temp folder, set via the TEMP/TMP environment variables, and creates the actual file (0 bytes) and a .part file used during the download.
You could try making the following preference false in about:config. browser.download.useDownloadDir
Thank you! The problem seems to be resolved.