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Cancelling downloads causes C: drive to lose disk space even download location is not specified in C:

  • 4 respuestas
  • 2 tienen este problema
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  • Última respuesta de cor-el

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I am using windows 7 64 bit. firefox version 32.0.1

Steps to perform: 1. open firefox 2. set download to ask where to save option 3. I choose D:/ 4. download something huge like 500MB or so, the bigger the file download is, the easier you will see the problem. 5. save to D:/ 6. half way through the download, My C:/ drive is losing 250MB of disk space 7. click cancel download 8. My C:/ drive is now filled with extra 250MB of disk space and the temporary folder of firefox is not showing this 250MB file.

Places that I tried to check for these half broken files: 1. C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Local\Mozilla\ 2. C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Local\Temp

The above 2 folders are less than 50MB in size.

There are 2 problems here: 1. How do I remove these half broken download files from my computer? 2. How do I tell firefox to save the temporary downloaded contents to D instead of the C drive? Currently FireFox is clearly not saving the temporary downloaded file into the path where I have specified.

I am using windows 7 64 bit. firefox version 32.0.1 Steps to perform: 1. open firefox 2. set download to ask where to save option 3. I choose D:/ 4. download something huge like 500MB or so, the bigger the file download is, the easier you will see the problem. 5. save to D:/ 6. half way through the download, My C:/ drive is losing 250MB of disk space 7. click cancel download 8. My C:/ drive is now filled with extra 250MB of disk space and the temporary folder of firefox is not showing this 250MB file. Places that I tried to check for these half broken files: 1. C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Local\Mozilla\ 2. C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Local\Temp The above 2 folders are less than 50MB in size. There are 2 problems here: 1. How do I remove these half broken download files from my computer? 2. How do I tell firefox to save the temporary downloaded contents to D instead of the C drive? Currently FireFox is clearly not saving the temporary downloaded file into the path where I have specified.

Todas las respuestas (4)

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I would have guessed the Temp folder, or possibly the folder last used for a download from the same site (since Firefox generally re-used the last folder used for the same site).

Could you try a global search of C:\Users\username\ for *.part and see whether that turns anything up?


Some sites such as Mega.co.nz use a Firefox IndexedDB database file for intermediate storage of downloads. To check how much space IndexedDB files are consuming, you could:

Open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either

  • "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
  • (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
  • type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, click the "Show Folder" button

Find the folder named storage, right-click it, and use Properties to ascertain its size. If it's huge, that could be the problem. However, I'm not sure how to safely clear obsolete data from here...

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Firefox would normally remove a file if you cancel the download. If that isn't happening then your anti-virus software might be locking the file for scanning or other reasons.

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Hi cor-el,

I found out that the half broken downloads are being locked by my anti virus program. The half broken downloads are located in the following folder: C:/Windows/Temp

Now my question is why is Firefox saving stuff in C:/Windows/Temp when I specified it in D:/ when I choose that folder specifically?

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Firefox immediately starts downloading the file in the background and saves the file to the temp folder and doesn't wait until you specify the name and the location (destination folder).