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How to change what Firefox does when you click on an entry in the Downloads selection?

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When I click on a link to a document (a PDF in my case), I'm asked for a location to store it. That's fine.

Now, if I click on the Downloads button in the Toolbar, a selection with all downloaded files opens. How do I specify/change the application used to open the file if I select it there?

Firefox 78.0.2 (64-bit) Mozilla Firefox for Ubuntu canonical - 1.0

When I click on a link to a document (a PDF in my case), I'm asked for a location to store it. That's fine. Now, if I click on the Downloads button in the Toolbar, a selection with all downloaded files opens. How do I specify/change the application used to open the file if I select it there? Firefox 78.0.2 (64-bit) Mozilla Firefox for Ubuntu canonical - 1.0
Attached screenshots

Chosen solution

I've changed the entry in mimeinfo.cache manually to

  • application/pdf=okularApplication_pdf.desktop;gimp.desktop;gv.desktop;libreoffice-draw.desktop;net.sourceforge.gscan2pdf.desktop;

and that seems to solve the problem. But why the corret result of xdg_mime? And how would I have changed it the correct, i.e., tool way?

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All Replies (4)

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On Linux, firefox uses xdg-open to determine how to open different mimetypes. You can check what is currently being used by running: $ xdg-mime query default application/pdf Then, assuming your app makes a standard .desktop entry in /usr/share/applications, you can set it by doing $ xdg-mime default <app>.desktop application/pdf If you need to manually set it, the file that sets these are in $HOME/.config/mimeapps.list

If you're referring to internally how firefox handles files, that can be changed in about:preferences .

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$ xdg-mime query default application/pdf yields okularApplication_pdf.desktop, so that seems to be right. I've attached my settings in about:preferences as picture. So, what else could be the reason? (Actually, I would like okular to open pdf files but gimp is used instead)

The only suspicious entries in /usr/share/applications with gimp and pdf are (/usr/share/applications$ grep gimp * | grep pdf)

  • gimp.desktop:MimeType=image/bmp;image/g3fax;image/gif;image/x-fits;image/x-pcx;image/x-portable-anymap;image/x-portable-bitmap;image/x-portable-graymap;image/x-portable-pixmap;image/x-psd;image/x-sgi;image/x-tga;image/x-xbitmap;image/x-xwindowdump;image/x-xcf;image/x-compressed-xcf;image/x-gimp-gbr;image/x-gimp-pat;image/x-gimp-gih;image/tiff;image/jpeg;image/x-psp;application/postscript;image/png;image/x-icon;image/x-xpixmap;image/x-exr;image/x-webp;image/heif;image/heic;image/svg+xml;application/pdf;image/x-wmf;image/jp2;image/x-xcursor;
  • mimeinfo.cache:application/pdf=gimp.desktop;gv.desktop;libreoffice-draw.desktop;net.sourceforge.gscan2pdf.desktop;okularApplication_pdf.desktop;

Maybe it's the mimeinfo.cache entry. But why then the correct result of xdg-mime query?

Modified by scholz

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Chosen Solution

I've changed the entry in mimeinfo.cache manually to

  • application/pdf=okularApplication_pdf.desktop;gimp.desktop;gv.desktop;libreoffice-draw.desktop;net.sourceforge.gscan2pdf.desktop;

and that seems to solve the problem. But why the corret result of xdg_mime? And how would I have changed it the correct, i.e., tool way?

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Please see the man page for xdg-mime; it describes what the query option actually does. I'm glad to see a manual edit fixed your issue.