Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Firefox creates a ~/Downloads directory every day or two despite my download directory being ~/downloads

  • 5 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Alan

more options

In the settings, under Files and Applications, my download directory is set to /home/user/downloads/firefox, but every day or two a new directory is created at /home/user/Downloads. This directory is always empty. How to prevent this from happening?

In the settings, under '''Files and Applications''', my download directory is set to /home/user/downloads/firefox, but every day or two a new directory is created at /home/user/Downloads. This directory is always empty. How to prevent this from happening?

All Replies (5)

more options

It's your OS which is doing that, not Firefox. Ask your distro support.

more options

Terry said

It's your OS which is doing that, not Firefox. Ask your distro support.

It started when I installed firefox.

more options

I doubt that Firefox can create a folder on your computer. Perhaps there is something in your distro's version of Firefox. You could try the Mozilla build. It doesn't need to be installed. Just decompress the tar file which you download then use the script firefox to launch.

https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/#product-desktop-release https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux

Modified by Terry

more options

I can remember having seen this reported in a long past that the Downloads folder got created (present since 2011) even if the default is a different folder, but I think that this has been fixed quite some time ago.

I found this bug though, no recent activity.

more options

cor-el said

I can remember having seen this reported in a long past that the Downloads folder got created (present since 2011) even if the default is a different folder, but I think that this has been fixed quite some time ago. I found this bug though, no recent activity.
  • 1828169 - FF creates a system Downloads folder, even when a custom downloads folder has been specified.

Do you think Terry's suggestion to try the Mozilla build has a chance of making a difference?

Modified by Alan