Starting with Firefox 91, the browser will change the way it handles downloads. It will save the files you have chosen to open in the user's Downloads folder. Currently, these files are downloaded to a temporary folder and deleted after the browsing session is closed.
This behavior is not welcomed by users. If they need to access an open file, they have to find the temporary directory in which it was saved, or re-download it if the file has already been automatically deleted.
This change will allow Firefox to store the files you choose to open directly in the regular Downloads folder, which finally makes no difference to how the browser stores the files, regardless of the option selected in the file download dialog box.
This way, all the files you downloaded will be located in the Downloads folder of your account. You can always quickly return to this file if you close the associated software.
The latter behavior has long been the default in Chrome, so Firefox will have exactly the same file handling. This also means you have to manually maintain your downloads folder and delete old and useless files yourself. Windows 10 users can configure Storage Sense for this .
The new file save policy will take effect with Firefox 91, which is expected to be released by the end of July 2021. It is unknown if it will include the ability to restore classic browser behavior. Most likely, there will be no settings for this.
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Should the title not be “Firefox will change how it OPENS downloaded files” for in about:preferences you can tell Firefox where to store downloads.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1710933
This will be rather annoying for forced pdf downloads and other things you just want to look at one time.