Whenever I open a file through Firefox (from the internet) it seems to automatically save the file in my Downloads directory. How do you stop firefox from saving these files. I only want to open them, not save them. Have tried changing the preferences in Safari and Thunderbird to ask me where to save the file and yet it still does it.
Firefox downloads
- Thread starter macshaun
- Start date
symphonix
Scratch & Sniff Committee
In order for a file to be opened in another program, it must first be saved onto your computer. Firefox does this, and then asks the other program to open the file. Firefox can't simply delete the file, as there is no way for Firefox to know what the other program wants to do with it.
Thats fine but I still don't think i'm being very clear so will create a scenario. I search for something in google and see that one of the links is to a document. When i click on that link it opens up a window asking if i would like to save or open the document. If i click on open the document it saves a copy of the document in my Downloads directory. Where do I change the setting for this...? I have tried in Safari, Thunderbird and Firefox but it still saves these to Downloads and not the temp directory I specified......hope this is clearer....
nixgeek
Mac of the SubGenius! :-)
It's in the preferences for the applications. Go to the menu up top and under the name of the application select Preferences. In there, you can set to have the browser (namely Firefox in this example) to ask you where you want to save your file. As for opening it, Firefox will choose the best app that's associated with the file to open it by default. If it doesn't, you can tell it which one by clicking on the button and locating the app you want to open the file with. Safari shouldn't be too different from that either, but you'd have to check in the preferences for Safari.
nixgeek i think you've misunderstood what I asked.....when I try to open a document via Firefox it opens up fine...its just the location where it saves that file that i want to change....i've set Firefox to ask me where to save the file and yet it still saves to Downloads not my temp directory....
nixgeek
Mac of the SubGenius! :-)
Well, usually if you tell it to open up a file instead of saving it, the file is almost always sent to a temporary directory. Once it's open, you have the choice within the application that it opened to view the file whether you want to save it or not. This is inherent in pretty much any browser that I've encountered on either Mac OS X, Windows, and GNU/Linux. The only way to have the browser save it to where you want would be to have it save the file first to the location of your desire and then opening it up from there. The assumption with browsers is that if you choose to open the file instead of saving it, then you only want to view it and not permanently store it (unless you do so from the application that launched to view the file).
The only other option would be to tell the browser where you want temporary files stored, but I don't think that's readily available from within your Preferences section (I could be wrong on this so don't quote me 100%). In Firefox, that would probably mean typing "about:config" in the address space and configuring the temporary directory location you want in there. But be advised that a bunch of other stuff (like whatever else is in your cache) will also show up in there.
I hope this makes some sense.
