Join the Mozilla’s Test Days event from Dec 2–8 to test the new Firefox address bar on Firefox Beta 134 and get a chance to win Mozilla swag vouchers! 🎁

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How can I save files as filename, not title, by default?

  • 4 replies
  • 6 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by EwartShaw

more options

After "Refresh"ing Firefox, it now by default saves a file with the page title, not the filename. I can no longer find out how to change this default behaviour (presumably I'd used an addon that has been deleted). This is extremely inconvenient - many archives have large numbers of filenames like "<number>.txt", e.g. "234567.txt", but all with the same title. I don't understand why keeping the old Firefox default was not made an option when you changed to saving by title!

After "Refresh"ing Firefox, it now by default saves a file with the page title, not the filename. I can no longer find out how to change this default behaviour (presumably I'd used an addon that has been deleted). This is extremely inconvenient - many archives have large numbers of filenames like "<number>.txt", e.g. "234567.txt", but all with the same title. I don't understand why keeping the old Firefox default was not made an option when you changed to saving by title!

Chosen solution

Do you still have the Old Firefox Data folder on your desktop from the Refresh? You may be able to research old extensions in there, as follows.

Click into the Old Firefox Data folder on your desktop. Then you should see:

  • a semi-randomly-named folder, often with "default" in the name
  • inside that, an extensions folder
  • inside that, various files and/or folders for your old extensions

The challenge is that extension files/folders often are named using unique id's instead of friendly descriptive names.

If none seems obviously useful, try this instead:

Return to the main level of the old settings folder and find the file extensions.json and right-click > Copy it. Then right-click > Paste in a blank area of the list. Windows should now show extensions - Copy.json. You can rename that with a .txt extension to access it more easily using a text editor.

In the file, search for any part of the extension's name and you should see information such as the following (example is Adobe Create PDF extension):

{"id":"web2pdfextension@web2pdf.adobedotcom","syncGUID":"v4hJ7nJBAhrE","location":"winreg-app-global","version":"2.0","type":"extension","internalName":null,"updateURL":null,"updateKey":null,"optionsURL":null, "optionsType":null,"aboutURL":null,"iconURL":"chrome://web2pdfextension/skin/C_AdobeLogo_48x48.png","icon64URL":"chrome://web2pdfextension/skin/C_AdobeLogo_64x64.png","defaultLocale":{"name":"Adobe Acrobat - Create PDF","description":"Converts a web page to PDF","creator":"Adobe Systems Incorporated","homepageURL":"http://www.adobe.com/"},"visible":true,"active":true,"userDisabled":false,"appDisabled":false,"descriptor":"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Adobe\\Acrobat 11.0\\Acrobat\\Browser\\WCFirefoxExtn","installDate":1389397098333,"updateDate":1437178060195,"applyBackgroundUpdates":1, "bootstrap":false,"size":286843,"sourceURI":null,"releaseNotesURI":null,"softDisabled":false,"foreignInstall":true, "hasBinaryComponents":false,"strictCompatibility":false,"locales":[],"targetApplications":[{"id":"{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}", "minVersion":"4.0","maxVersion":"*.*"}],"targetPlatforms":[],"multiprocessCompatible":false,"signedState":0}

Note: turn on word wrap if necessary, since otherwise it's one long line.

If you skim through the parameters, hopefully you can find the full title.

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (4)

more options

Have you tried Save File As

more options

Chosen Solution

Do you still have the Old Firefox Data folder on your desktop from the Refresh? You may be able to research old extensions in there, as follows.

Click into the Old Firefox Data folder on your desktop. Then you should see:

  • a semi-randomly-named folder, often with "default" in the name
  • inside that, an extensions folder
  • inside that, various files and/or folders for your old extensions

The challenge is that extension files/folders often are named using unique id's instead of friendly descriptive names.

If none seems obviously useful, try this instead:

Return to the main level of the old settings folder and find the file extensions.json and right-click > Copy it. Then right-click > Paste in a blank area of the list. Windows should now show extensions - Copy.json. You can rename that with a .txt extension to access it more easily using a text editor.

In the file, search for any part of the extension's name and you should see information such as the following (example is Adobe Create PDF extension):

{"id":"web2pdfextension@web2pdf.adobedotcom","syncGUID":"v4hJ7nJBAhrE","location":"winreg-app-global","version":"2.0","type":"extension","internalName":null,"updateURL":null,"updateKey":null,"optionsURL":null, "optionsType":null,"aboutURL":null,"iconURL":"chrome://web2pdfextension/skin/C_AdobeLogo_48x48.png","icon64URL":"chrome://web2pdfextension/skin/C_AdobeLogo_64x64.png","defaultLocale":{"name":"Adobe Acrobat - Create PDF","description":"Converts a web page to PDF","creator":"Adobe Systems Incorporated","homepageURL":"http://www.adobe.com/"},"visible":true,"active":true,"userDisabled":false,"appDisabled":false,"descriptor":"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Adobe\\Acrobat 11.0\\Acrobat\\Browser\\WCFirefoxExtn","installDate":1389397098333,"updateDate":1437178060195,"applyBackgroundUpdates":1, "bootstrap":false,"size":286843,"sourceURI":null,"releaseNotesURI":null,"softDisabled":false,"foreignInstall":true, "hasBinaryComponents":false,"strictCompatibility":false,"locales":[],"targetApplications":[{"id":"{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}", "minVersion":"4.0","maxVersion":"*.*"}],"targetPlatforms":[],"multiprocessCompatible":false,"signedState":0}

Note: turn on word wrap if necessary, since otherwise it's one long line.

If you skim through the parameters, hopefully you can find the full title.

more options

By the way, if the document title is blank, then Firefox will use the file name. Which means you could try a hack to address this situation, which is to blank out the document title or change it to something you prefer. Probably the simplest way to do that is using a bookmarklet. That's a short script you save on the Bookmarks Toolbar or Bookmarks Menu so it's easy to run. Here are two examples:

(1) To blank out the document title -- the URL then should appear on the tab

javascript:void(document.title="");

(2) To display a dialog that lets you edit the file name and make that the title (in this example, it adds the site at the beginning, e.g., support_mozilla_org)

javascript:var fn = window.location.pathname.substr(window.location.pathname.lastIndexOf('/')+1); var p = prompt('You can edit the new title to your liking (to use only the actual file name, click Cancel):', window.location.hostname.replace(/\./g, '_') + '_' + fn); if(p) document.title = p; else document.title = fn; void 0;

To try out either of these, here's how you create a bookmarklet:

Select and copy (Ctrl+c) the script code you want to use.

Right-click a spot on the Bookmarks Toolbar or Bookmarks Menu where you would like to add the button, and choose New Bookmarks.

Click in Location and paste (Ctrl+v) the script code.

Click in Name and assign something convenient like ClearTitle or EditTitle. Then click the Add button to save the bookmarklet.

To test it out on a page, just click. If you would like something more customized for that particular site, there's a good chance it's possible, so feel free to ask.

more options

Thank you! Once I'd added the "Title Save" extension, the "Save File As" option showed the original filename (which is how I want to save the files). Without that extension, "Save File As" showed the title, necessitating much tedious & error-prone cutting+pasting.