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Can I remove download history without losing all my open tabs, tab groups and pinned tabs?

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  • 3 have this problem
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  • Last reply by ssrj.95

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Question: Can I remove download history without losing all my open tabs, pinned tabs and tab groups?

Details: When browsing history was conflated with download history, I tried it out and it took minutes to clear all my old downloads; only it turned out it was removing all my open tabs, tab groups and pinned tabs forever. I cannot express the overwhelming despair losing all my open tabs, pinned tabs and tab groups caused me. Is there a way to remove download history without losing all my open tabs, pinned tabs and tab groups?

Further, I'd prefer if you had to manually ask a browser to even keep a download history in the first place and I know the browser limits the number of download items to a constant (I think its a fixed sized list of most recent downloads to prevent unbounded growth). I should be able to change the value of that constat to 0; but can I?

I can express the implications of what happens when a release version of Firefox causes me to lose all my open tabs, pinned tabs and tab groups. What was once a fun place to play around with settings becomes a hostile place where every change requires an astonishingly dull unwindable component that I'll have to automate before I can "try X to fix it."

Close Firefox Backup my entire profile Start Firefox Try making a change Close Firefox Start Firefox Check to see if the change worked (if it doesn't) (close firefox) (restore my profile) (start firefox) Remove Backup profile.

For my own reference, I have believe I have researched the person who was responsible for this change: Marco Bonardo [:mak] bugzilla.mozilla.org/user_profile?user_id=240353

The bug report that supports this claim starts with him saying: for the downloads panel it doesn't make any sense, we should probably change it to "Browsing and download history". bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=847627

Question: Can I remove download history without losing all my open tabs, pinned tabs and tab groups? Details: When browsing history was conflated with download history, I tried it out and it took minutes to clear all my old downloads; only it turned out it was removing all my open tabs, tab groups and pinned tabs forever. I cannot express the overwhelming despair losing all my open tabs, pinned tabs and tab groups caused me. Is there a way to remove download history without losing all my open tabs, pinned tabs and tab groups? Further, I'd prefer if you had to manually ask a browser to even keep a download history in the first place and I know the browser limits the number of download items to a constant (I think its a fixed sized list of most recent downloads to prevent unbounded growth). I should be able to change the value of that constat to 0; but can I? I can express the implications of what happens when a release version of Firefox causes me to lose all my open tabs, pinned tabs and tab groups. What was once a fun place to play around with settings becomes a hostile place where every change requires an astonishingly dull unwindable component that I'll have to automate before I can "try X to fix it." Close Firefox Backup my entire profile Start Firefox Try making a change Close Firefox Start Firefox Check to see if the change worked (if it doesn't) (close firefox) (restore my profile) (start firefox) Remove Backup profile. For my own reference, I have believe I have researched the person who was responsible for this change: Marco Bonardo [:mak] bugzilla.mozilla.org/user_profile?user_id=240353 The bug report that supports this claim starts with him saying: for the downloads panel it doesn't make any sense, we should probably change it to "Browsing and download history". bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=847627

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If you want to clear only your downloads history you can go into the downloads library and click "Clear Downloads". To get to the downloads library press Ctrl+J or in the menu select "Downloads" under "Tools".