Properly Reset Firefox Download Actions

When you click on a file Firefox determines if there is a plugin that can handle the file type or if there is a so called download action defined. Download actions are user defined actions that come into effect when the box “Do this automatically for files like this from now on” is checked in Firefox during a file download.

Checking the box has the effect that Firefox does not ask what to do with this file type from then on but simply performs the default operation selected by the user. This usually means either saving or opening the file automatically with the selected application.

This can lead to some complications later on when another application should handle the file types for instance. There are two possibilities on how to handle such a situation. The first is to click on Tools > Options to open the Firefox configuration. The download actions are available under the Content tab when clicking on Manage next to the entry File Types.

Update: They are now listed under Applications in more recent versions of the browser.

Single download actions can be removed there. The other option would be to reset all Download Actions if things have been really messed up and you want to start over. The steps are the following:

• enter about:config in the address bar and hit enter
• right-click the preference browser.download.pluginOverrideTypes and select reset
• right-click the preference plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types and select reset
• locate the file mimeTypes.rdf in the profile folder and delete it. Make sure it is in the profile folder and not in the programs folder

Update 2: Please note that the listed preferences are no longer available in the Firefox browser, and that you cannot reset the actions this way anymore. You can however sort the preferences by user modification to see if there is anything that you can change.

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Author: Martin Brinkmann, Thursday March 13, 2008 -
Tags:browser, Firefox, firefox tips, mozilla

Responses so far:

1. Transcontinental says:

   March 14, 2008 at 4:33 pm

   Thanks a lot. I’ve encountered the problem with video files’ and never knew how to manage properly. Nice 3 point procedure.

   Reply
2. phil says:

   April 24, 2009 at 1:14 pm

   first check if firefox recognises the file extention that is giving you a problem

   tools>options>applications tab

   scroll down to look for the extention.

   if you found it then just click on the left or right on the scroll down option bar near the extention ( depending which language version you are using) and choose the option “always ask”.

   it will reset the download helper for this specific extention and next time you try to use a link that is associated with it, it will ask you what to do with it.

   good luck.

   Reply