Can I restore cleared downloads?
So I just hit the "clear down loads" link instead of search downloads by mistake. I have not saved all of those downloads to my hard drive yet. Is there any way to restore that list?
Chosen solution
Hi tbexrick, on Windows, when you use the "Clear Downloads" button in the Library window, Firefox removes the download name/location from your Firefox history. However, it does not delete the files from your Downloads folder.
If you always "Save" to the same folder (for example, Downloads) then your files should still be there and hopefully you can spot them.
If you used "Open" to launch a file in an external application, most likely the file was placed in your Temp folder (a folder Windows manages for you). I think those are more at risk of being cleaned out, but you certainly can take a look. To open that folder, a shortcut method is:
Type or paste %TEMP% in the Windows 10 search box (the one on the Taskbar). Windows should display results including most prominently a link to open a file folder. Click that to load the Temp folder in File Explorer. If you use the "Details" view you can sort the items by date and maybe that will help in spotting the downloads you want to rescue.
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Are they in your recycle bin and you can restore from there?
That was a good suggestion. But no. they are not there (.
Chosen Solution
Hi tbexrick, on Windows, when you use the "Clear Downloads" button in the Library window, Firefox removes the download name/location from your Firefox history. However, it does not delete the files from your Downloads folder.
If you always "Save" to the same folder (for example, Downloads) then your files should still be there and hopefully you can spot them.
If you used "Open" to launch a file in an external application, most likely the file was placed in your Temp folder (a folder Windows manages for you). I think those are more at risk of being cleaned out, but you certainly can take a look. To open that folder, a shortcut method is:
Type or paste %TEMP% in the Windows 10 search box (the one on the Taskbar). Windows should display results including most prominently a link to open a file folder. Click that to load the Temp folder in File Explorer. If you use the "Details" view you can sort the items by date and maybe that will help in spotting the downloads you want to rescue.
Downloads are treated as history, so if you clear the download kist then the corresponding history items are removed. Firefox doesn't keep a backup of the history (only keep bookmark backups), so you would need a backup copy of places.sqlite (stores bookmarks and history) to recover this history. The pages with a link where you downloaded these files should still be in the history unless you cleared these as well.
Were some of these downloads paused and thus were unfinished downloads?
You can look at this utility to browse System Restore points to see whether you can locate such an older version of places.sqlite.
- System Restore Explorer
https://www.nicbedford.co.uk/software/systemrestoreexplorer/
You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.
- Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Directory:
Windows: Show Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
That was it J. Thank you!