Avatar for Username

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

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

"Open With" saves downloaded files instead of using a temp file

  • 2 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by tkb_

tkb_
tkb_
more options

When I navigate to a non-web file (e.g., a pdf), Firefox asks what to do with it.

- "open with" an external application, or - "save file" to the Downloads folder.

However, it saves a copy to the Downloads folder no matter what I do. (FF5, os x snow leopard)

This is annoying because it turns that folder into a mishmash of things I have explicitly saved, and random PDFs I never intended to keep.

On my other computer (linux, ff3.5), "open with" saves the document with the temporary files, which is automatically cleaned. How can I get this behavior on the mac version?

When I navigate to a non-web file (e.g., a pdf), Firefox asks what to do with it. - "open with" an external application, or - "save file" to the Downloads folder. However, it saves a copy to the Downloads folder no matter what I do. (FF5, os x snow leopard) This is annoying because it turns that folder into a mishmash of things I have explicitly saved, and random PDFs I never intended to keep. On my other computer (linux, ff3.5), "open with" saves the document with the temporary files, which is automatically cleaned. How can I get this behavior on the mac version?

All Replies (2)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

Maybe this pref still works.

Set the pref browser.helperApps.deleteTempFileOnExit to true on the about:config page.

To open the about:config page, type about:config in the location (address) bar and press the "Enter" key, just like you type the url of a website to open a website.
If you see a warning then you can confirm that you want to access that page.

  • Use the Filter bar at to top of the about:config page to locate a preference more easily.
  • Preferences that have been modified show as bold (user set).
  • Preferences can be reset to the default or changed via the right-click context menu.
tkb_
tkb_ Question owner
more options

Thanks for your suggestion, cor-el! The pref still sort of works (as described in this earlier discussion of my same complaint ), but it leads to some unstable behavior in Mac OS X.


  • This option auto-deletes the files in the Downloads folder which were opened with a helper app, upon closing Firefox. (as advertised)
  • Files in the folder that got there using "save" instead of "open" are kept (good)
  • Even if the helper app is closed, the temp file remains until firefox is closed (not ideal)
  • Moving any of the temp files from the Download folder prior to their deletion causes the Finder to freeze (definitely bad)

Now, moving the temp files is not something you would do on purpose, but when they're mixed in with all the stuff you downloaded and intend to save, it's bound to happen - especially if you run Firefox around the clock. It happened to me, and I got stuck with an eternal progress bar in the finder and had to force reboot.

So, I won't be keeping this setting. It might be usable in conjunction with another pref that would separate the temp files from the explicitly saved downloads, as is done on Linux. I'm not sure if such a pref exists, though.