Stop Firefox from randomly replacing my pictures
I download pictures frequently and have noticed an issue with Firefox. It appears that Firefox is accessing my files and replacing random pictures I had previously organized in my Pictures folder. Even though I declined the permission for Firefox to access my pictures, it somehow still reads my files and replacing them it likes to. How can I stop this behavior? It doesn’t happen with other browsers.
There is an easy way to replicate this issue on the Firefox release, beta, and nightly versions:
1. Download a picture.
2. Move the picture to any folder within the Pictures folder.
3. Redownload the same picture again.
4. Click "Open" directly and open in Google Photos.
5. Click the three dots in the top-right corner to confirm the file's location.
You will see that Firefox knows the new file location and opens it from there. This indicates that Firefox is accessing file information directly because the "Open" function wouldn’t work if a third-party app was responsible for managing it.
All Replies (3)
It's strange because after you move the image, it disappears from Firefox's own Downloads list. If it were keeping track of the new location, shouldn't it be doing it there, too?
Could this be an option in Android's APIs (i.e., Android is changing the save directory to avoid duplicates)? I'm having trouble searching about this.
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer said
It's strange because after you move the image, it disappears from Firefox's own Downloads list. If it were keeping track of the new location, shouldn't it be doing it there, too? Could this be an option in Android's APIs (i.e., Android is changing the save directory to avoid duplicates)? I'm having trouble searching about this.
I'm also having trouble understanding why this issue only occur on Firefox. I even asked Gemini if it could be a system issue, but it couldn’t determine the cause. It suggested that the issue might be related to either Firefox or Google Photos. I tried deactivating Google Photos, but the problem persists.
Yes, the image disappears from Firefox's own Downloads list after being moved. When I download the same image again, it doesn’t appear in the Downloads list anymore. The fact remains that clicking "Open" from Firefox still opens the image. Doesn’t this raise privacy concerns, given that Firefox reading my picture folders? I don’t want this duplication-check behavior. What’s more, Firefox doesn’t replace the same file located in the Downloads folder; instead, it just adds "(1)" to the filename.
My phone is a Google Pixel 8 Pro running Android 15. This issue also occurred when I was using Android 14.
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I guess file a bug?
At least for me, after the downloaded file is moved from the Download directory to a subdirectory of the Pictures directory, it never reappears on Firefox's Downloads list even if I redownload it. It's just very weird.
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