Open instead of save downloaded files mac

Apple increasingly nudges people to store their documents in the cloud. If you use this feature, your home folder — the one with the house icon and user name — is less important than in the past, but it remains that some important folders remain housed there — one of which is Downloads.

The Downloads folder is aptly named. Most people, though, stick with the default. Browsers typically make it easy to quickly get to downloaded files. Clicking the magnifying glass button next to an item reveals the downloaded file in Finder.

By default Apple mail deletes attached files when the email is deleted. Aug 12, AM in response to anthonyepounds In response to anthonyepounds. If you use Apple's Mail app, then it will store them in a hidden Mail Downloads folder, which can be wiped regularly.

Aug 12, AM. Page content loaded. Double click the icon for the attachment and it will open in the application used for that filetype. For your computer to display the file, it has to read it from somewhere. If the file is on external mail servers or cloud storage, then it has to be downloaded to be read.

I take it this is all using web-based mail clients, rather than Apple's Mail app? Only if I choose to always open this file type, but it still saves it to my downloads folder. Aug 12, AM in response to benwiggy In response to benwiggy. I guess I will have to, it is just hard to believe that microsoft has a way to open the file and it doesnt save it anywhere, but MAC doesnt?

Mac is leagues ahead of PC, it should be able to open the file from the server and give you the choice through the application to save or just close without saving Microsoft does save attachments when you double-click. It is just that they hide the files in the SecureTemp location. That introduces a whole slew of unique problems on its own.

Tracking, so what I did was to open an attachment in my Apple Main application, that created the not before created Mail Downloads folder. I changed my setting to download all attachments there and just have them wiped regularly with the rest of my attachments.

Thanks for the help. That was exactly what I was looking for. Sep 16, AM in response to anthonyepounds In response to anthonyepounds. From the "Content Type" select "Portable Document Format" and make sure that next to it the action is selected as "Preview in Firefox" ,if it is not please change it from the drop down menu.

That should help you for the PDFs. For a wider range of document formats please try with one of these addons. Although I haven't tried them personally but from the reviews they seem to serve your purpose I recommend you type about:preferences general in the address bar, and under Downloads , select Always ask me where to save files. I hope this helps, but if not, please come back here and we can look into a different solution for you.

Selecting Always ask me where to save files does not give me any prompts. Sometimes I just want to open a document without saving it to my computer.