Downloads.rdf

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Revision as of 16:46, 2 February 2006 by Np (talk | contribs) (uncapitalize "download history")
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(This is an example of a profile file article. See Talk:Profile folder for discussion.)

downloads.rdf is a file in the profile folder. In Firefox and Mozilla Suite, it contains download history, and its contents can be viewed and managed through the Download Manager. In Thunderbird, it contains a history of attachments opened or saved by double-clicking on files listed in the Attachments pane or by using the menu sequence "File -> Attachments -> [attachment name] -> Open". Thunderbird has no UI for viewing or managing the contents of this file.

Usage

Whenever a download is initiated, information about the download (such as the file name, URL, date and time) is written to the downloads.rdf file. This data is later deleted according to the user’s settings for Download History.

Editing

It's not advisable to edit this file manually because of its complexity and the fact that, in Firefox and Mozilla Suite, the Download Manager provides an interface to edit it.

Moving

This file can be moved to a different profile without any extra effort.

Disabling

To completely disable download logging you can delete the contents of the download.rdf file and save it as a read-only file. This will prevent your Mozilla application from ever writing data to the file. You should still be able to perform downloads as usual. This works for Fx (all versions). It needs verifying for other Moz apps.

Deleting

Deleting downloads.rdf will clear your download history. A new file will be created on start up or when the application first needs to write to the file.

Related mechanisms

downloads.rdf is the only place (including preferences) where download history is recorded. However, if you choose to directly open a file instead of first saving it to disk, data will be logged in downloads.rdf in the usual way and the file will be downloaded to your system’s temporary folder. The file is normally deleted from the temporary folder when you close your application. However, in the event of a crash the file will often remain.

Related issues