Save an image opened in new tab after the origin server has gone away
Hi community!
I have opened a few images I've found on a website in separate tabs through the right-click menu "open in new tab" command. After some time browsing the site, the webserver went away - the particulars are irrelevant, suffice to say that I can no longer connect to the images' origin host. I'm now trying to save the images I've already opened, and which Firefox has downloaded and is displaying in tabs, but am baffled that I cannot do that:
- Firefox has definitely downloaded the image and it exists in its cache, either in memory or on disk. I can see each opened image in full resolution in its individual tab. The URL displayed in the location bar would download as a plain `image/jpeg` file, if the webserver were still available to me.
- When I try to save the image, Firefox always insists on downloading a fresh copy. This happens regardless of the method used to save the image; I've tested File > Save Page As, context-menu > Save Image As, drag & drop into Windows Explorer.
- The only way to "rescue" the image from Firefox is to copy the image to the clipboard, paste it into an image editor and save it under a new name. Needless to say, this is extremely cumbersome, loses any metadata associated with the image and is unlikely to create an accurate copy of the original image (recompression, missing color-space information, etc.).
Is there a way to make Firefox save the image-opened-in-a-tab to my computer, without asking the origin server for a more recent version? I just want what's already displayed on my screen...
P.S.: You can observe this behavior in a standard Firefox without any user-installed addons; it is not specific to Waterfox or any addon.
Ŋuɖoɖo si wotia
I assume re-requesting the image is by design since we've had it for a long time.
You could try https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/mozilla_cache_viewer.html to extract files directly from cache. I haven't used it for years, so I don't know how well it works these days, but basic JPEGs haven't changed, have they?
If all else fails, you can use my add-on as a right-click image screenshotter with choice of PNG vs. JPEG compression: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/save-webp-as-png-or-jpeg/
Xle ŋuɖoɖo sia le goya me 👍 0All Replies (5)
You can possibly take a screenshot of those images. You can inspect the image in the Inspector via the right-click context menu (Inspect) and use "Screenshot Node" or "Copy -> Image Data-URL" via the right-click context menu. The former saves the image to the default download location as set in "Settings -> General -> Downloads". The latter gives you the image encoded as base64.
Both of these methods have the same caveats as copy&pasting into another program - loss of quality, loss of metadata, etc.
To be honest, I was surprised that this is true for the "Copy -> Image as Data-URL" function, but lo and behold: some random 71K JPEG image from imgur.com (https://i.imgur.com/nE6LW6R.jpeg) is copied as a 1.1M base64-String, which when unpacked results as a 824KB PNG image.
Also, none of these workarounds work for videos of any kind (https://i.giphy.com/media/ji6zzUZwNIuLS/giphy.webp).
The more I'm investigating this, the more I'm convincing myself that this is a missing feature or a bug and should be taken to Bugzilla.
Ɖɔɖɔɖo si wotia
I assume re-requesting the image is by design since we've had it for a long time.
You could try https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/mozilla_cache_viewer.html to extract files directly from cache. I haven't used it for years, so I don't know how well it works these days, but basic JPEGs haven't changed, have they?
If all else fails, you can use my add-on as a right-click image screenshotter with choice of PNG vs. JPEG compression: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/save-webp-as-png-or-jpeg/
If that is by design, it is a really weird design choice, probably serving technical pedantery more than actual usefulness for the average end-user.
Given that similar bug reports on the Bugzilla have being going absolutely nowhere for 21 years (!), I guess the solution here is to use a different browser? I want to like Firefox, I really do, especially given the Chromium Manifest V3 trainwreck heading our way early next year, but it's not making it easy.
If you often need to save an image open in a tab that is no longer available on the web, and other browsers work differently in that regard, then I guess you might need to consider changing browsers. It isn't something I've encountered in recent years, but everyone has their individual needs.
If you do get a chance to use the Nirsoft tool, please let us know how it works for you.