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Saving attachments folder location

  • 12 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 563 views
  • Last reply by KSG

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I am having a problem with the folder location settings for saving attachments.

If I navigate to a folder I can save the first file. However, for the second file, the location then "reverts" to whichever location I was using when saving an attachment from a message previously (not a fixed location, just whichever folder i was using then).

What might generate this behavior, and how can I prevent the location from "reverting"?

I am having a problem with the folder location settings for saving attachments. If I navigate to a folder I can save the first file. However, for the second file, the location then "reverts" to whichever location I was using when saving an attachment from a message previously (not a fixed location, just whichever folder i was using then). What might generate this behavior, and how can I prevent the location from "reverting"?

Chosen solution

You can right-click > Modify it accordingly.

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All Replies (12)

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Go to Options > Files & Attachments and set it to your prefered location.

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Many thanks for responding, but this does not solve the issue.

I have set this to "always ask me where to save the file".

The problem is that when I chose the location to save a file and have more than one attachment to save the location will then "revert" to whichever location was used before navigating to the new location chosen.

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Why don't you change it from "always ask" to the other option and set it to the location you want?

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I want to be able to chose where to save attachments, as these should go in different folders. Having a fixed folder is not a convenient option.

This was working perfectly fine until the last update.

It is unclear to me how the previous folder is retained and overrides the folder chosen for attachments 2+.

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Open Config Editor and search for the preference named messenger.save.dir. Which path does it contain in its value? This is the preference that "remembers" the last used save location, as per the tests I've just perfomed.

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Many thanks for your reply.

The entry contains the directory last used to save a file attachment.

I am guessing that it for some reason does not get updated for successive attachment until I close the save window and try again.

How could I modify this so that the save location chosen remains the same for attachments nr 2+?

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Chosen Solution

You can right-click > Modify it accordingly.

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This does not solve the problem. It simply replaces the location that the directory reverts to.

Let me try to explain what happens:

  • I open message 1 with an attachment i, and save this in a folder location A.
  • When I open a message 2 with two attachments ii and iii, navigate to folder location B, then save ii in locaton B, the location for attachment iii now "reverts" to location A and I have to renavigate to B to save the attachment there.
  • If I open a new message 3 and try to save the attachment the "default" folder will now be B rather than A.

I did not have this problem until the last update. There must be some reversion to the old location for the previously saved attachement to a message (as opposed to last attachment to the current message).

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I tried to reproduce your problem, but I couldn't. I sent myself a test message with three attachments, and whichever location I chose for attachment 1 was remembered for the other two attachments of that same message and for other messages as well. This is on Tbird 78.3.2 64-bit on Windows 10 64-bit, which has been receiving updates since version 78.0. You can try resetting that preference and see if it changes behaviour.

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Many thanks for your response and looking into this.

I am not surprised that you cannot reproduce it. It is clearly not an intended feature, I think it must be some kind of corruption in the settings (again, it only appeared after a recent update - I am currently running 78.3.2).

I have considered trying to uninstall Thunderbird and reinstalling, but I am worried that any problem or corruption will persist if I copy the old profile.

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Uninstalling and reinstalling Tbird may not work. Try reverting to a previous version of the prefs.js file (where your settings are stored). Tbird keeps a number of backup copies of this file in your profile folder. Open your profile folder, Quit Tbird, rename the current prefs.js file to something else, e.g prefs.bak, then rename the most recent backup copy to prefs.js and launch Tbird. Check if the problem persists and repeat the same with the other backup copies if necessary. Hopefully, one of the backup copies does not have this issue, if at all it's linked to Tbird, because this could very easily be a problem with Windows and not Tbird.

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I tried to restore an old version of prefs.js, but this unfortunately did not soolve the problem.

I think it must be a Thunerbird related issue, there is no folder location reversion in any other applications.