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Automatically open Excel File

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I want Firefox to automatically open a file I download from a site, I don't want to press a button after I click it on the site. I swear this use to be a feature, but now I can't for the life of me figure out how to change this setting.

I want Firefox to automatically open a file I download from a site, I don't want to press a button after I click it on the site. I swear this use to be a feature, but now I can't for the life of me figure out how to change this setting.

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Yes, if you have gone into the Options page, General panel, Files and Applications section, and matched these (you may not see all of them)

  • Microsoft Excel Worksheet
  • XLS file
  • XLDX file

to "Use Excel" then Firefox should do that automatically. For example:

But there is a catch: Firefox matches downloads to saved instructions using the Content-Type header sent by the site. If the site sends a generic "binary file" header, then Firefox doesn't save instructions for that since it would apply to program downloads, too.

If the problem is that the site is not sending the correct Content-Type header for XLS and XLSX files, I have an add-on to fix that. You can learn more about it here:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/content-type-fixer/

That works by noticing the .xls and .xlsx file extensions on the downloads, and passing Firefox the correct Content-Type.