Mozilla Monitor website will be down for 2 hours starting 5/20/2025 at 6 AM PT. Visit our status site for updates.

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

Mozilla keeps saving downloads to appdata\local\temp folder instead of the default location

  • 2 replies
  • 4 have this problem
  • 117 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

Instead of downloading files to the default downloads folder mozilla just keeps putting them in the temp folder I tried switching the default location after I switched it to always ask me first but it didn't work Then I tried using administrator, disabling two extensions that I have which are privacy badger and adblock plus and that didn't work either Finally I ran safe mode and tried it there, that didn't work either. It's making me lose my mind

Instead of downloading files to the default downloads folder mozilla just keeps putting them in the temp folder I tried switching the default location after I switched it to always ask me first but it didn't work Then I tried using administrator, disabling two extensions that I have which are privacy badger and adblock plus and that didn't work either Finally I ran safe mode and tried it there, that didn't work either. It's making me lose my mind

Chosen solution

hi LemonSquid, usually there are two option in the download dialog - save and open. save should download the files into the specified download directory, whereas open will put the files into the system's temp folder that you've referenced and open the file with the associated application for it to be discarded afterwards...

Read this answer in context 👍 2

All Replies (2)

Chosen Solution

hi LemonSquid, usually there are two option in the download dialog - save and open. save should download the files into the specified download directory, whereas open will put the files into the system's temp folder that you've referenced and open the file with the associated application for it to be discarded afterwards...

Firefox immediately starts downloading the file in the background and saves the .part file to the temp folder and doesn't wait until you specify the name and the location (destination folder). If the file stays in the temp folder then it is possible that your security software is blocking the file and prevents Firefox from moving the file to the specified destination folder and rename the file to the correct file name and extension.