Firefox saves to Download folder instead of asking where to save for Forced download link of files set to "Open in Firefox"
My FF is set up to: - Always ask you where to save files - Open PDF in Firefox
On normal PDF links, FF opens the PDF normally without downloading (or after downloading it silently in a temporary location invisible to me). On "Force Download" links, FF downloads the PDF to the Download folder without asking where to save it. This is for example the case when clicking "Download" on a file in Gmail. If I click "Download" in Gmail on another file type that I have not set to "Open in Firefox", FF does ask me where to save it.
My expectation would be that, if the file cannot be opened in the browser, then FF would revert to the user's chosen behavior of "Always ask you where to save files".
All Replies (4)
You can set browser.download.start_downloads_in_tmp_dir = true on the about:config page to make Firefox use the OS temp folder.
You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. On the warning page, you can click "Accept the Risk and Continue" to open about:config.
This doesn't solve my problem. Regardless of which folder FF will use, it's not doing what I asked, which is to ask me where to save a file whenever a file is downloaded. Using the OS temp folder only makes it worse in that it's now also harder to find the downloaded file.
These are unrelated to my issue. The issue I am reporting is a bug. FF does not have the intended behavior specified in the settings. When clicking Download on a link that "Force Downloads" a PDF, FF should ask where to save the PDF, because it's no longer "Open"-ing the file, it's Downloading it, so the Download setting should preempt the Open setting.