Hi mikey5001,
have a look here: Delete browsing, search and download history on Firefox
Also you may find this useful: How to clear the Firefox cache
Please report back if this answered your questions!

In the traditional menus, go to Tools > Options. If you have the orange Firefox button, click that and then select Options. In the window that opens, select "Privacy" from the icons across the top. From there you can delete cookies and history and tell Firefox what information you want to save (if anything).

If you click to clear your history, a window will open up. Click "Details" to select what to delete - from there you can delete temp/cache files, autofill information, etc.

Many site issues can be caused by corrupt cookies or cache. In order to try to fix these problems, the first step is to clear both cookies and the cache. Note: This will temporarily log you out of all sites you're logged in to. To clear cache and cookies do the following:

1. Go to Firefox > History > Clear recent history or (if no Firefox button is shown) go to Tools > Clear recent history.
2. Under "Time range to clear", select "Everything".
3. Now, click the arrow next to Details to toggle the Details list active.
4. From the details list, check Cache and Cookies and uncheck everything else.
5. Now click the Clear now button.

Further information can be found in the Clear your cache, history and other personal information in Firefox article.

Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us!

i would also like to delete temp files. i went to tools-options-privacy-details, but it does not give me a choice of deleting temp files. i am using firefox 20. is there another way to get to where i need to be?

ydaltalk,

Temp files, referred to as "Temporary Internet Files" for Internet Explorer, are referred to as "Cache" for Firefox.

If you follow the instructions in my previous comment, when you click the button to delete history, a dialog will open allowing you to select what items to delete. Make sure the "Cache" checkbox is ticked; this will ensure your browser's temp files are deleted.

is there a difference between "temp" files and ".tmp" files? i checked the "cache" checkbox and when i looked at one of my folders a .tmp file still remained.

I'm pretty sure with Firefox, you're always going to have a .tmp file if the browser is running at all.

I wouldn't worry about it. Is there something specific you're trying to remove?

i'm not trying to remove anything for a specific reason. i'm just trying to keep my harddrive as clean as possible. i appreciate your help!!

hi, what is the downside of clearing cache?

does it mean that web sites i use every day, like the daily newspaper, will not open up until i sign in?

Cache contains temporary files that are downloaded to your computer so that websites can load faster - for instance, when you visit Google, the Google logo and other images are downloaded to your machine so that you don't have to reload them from Google's servers every time you visit one of their pages.

This is separate from cookies and session data (I believe this is called "Active Logins" in Firefox now), which help you log in to sites faster. Cookies are created any time you click "remember me" or something similar when you log in to a website.

Clearing your cache is usually not necessary unless you are running out of disk space or Firefox isn't loading pages correctly. To clear the cached files for a specific webpage, just hold down the Shift key and click the Reload button (in the address bar) to force a reload of the page from the server.