Chris Ilias’ Blog : Turn off the “Downloads Complete” alert in Firefox.

{ 2005 11 09 }

Turn off the “Downloads Complete” alert in Firefox.

Some folks don’t like the pop-up notification Mozilla Firefox gives, when downloads are completed.

You can turn that off using a hidden setting. Enter about:config in the location bar.
Search for the preference
browser.download.manager.showAlertOnComplete.
Modify the value to false.

Posted by Chris Ilias on Wednesday, November 9, 2005, at 12:12 am. Filed under Firefox, Mozilla. Follow any responses to this post with its comments RSS feed. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

{ 28 } Comments

Anonymous | November 29, 2005 at 12:43 am | Permalink

Thank you! I hate that pop up, especially when I download/open an office file, it switches back from the app to Firefox, very annoying.
Anonymous | December 20, 2005 at 9:20 am | Permalink

Thanks Chris!
Anonymous | January 31, 2006 at 10:26 am | Permalink

I was able to turn off the downloads complete alert but when I open an office file, the browser window is the active window and the office file is in the background causing user to have to click on the task bar to view the document. Is there another setting that will make the office document active and the browser stay in the background. I am using Foxfire v1.5.
Greg | February 14, 2006 at 2:50 am | Permalink

Hey, that’s pretty cool ‘about:config’ who knew. Thanks.
Anonymous | February 27, 2006 at 12:36 pm | Permalink

Thanks Chris!
anonymous | August 23, 2006 at 2:16 pm | Permalink

Brilliant bit of advice – that thing gets on my nerves – thanks a lot
firefoxy | November 6, 2006 at 5:25 pm | Permalink

thanks, that little bugger annoyed the hell out of me
Svetlozar | March 3, 2007 at 7:31 pm | Permalink

Never noticed it till I started downloading a bunch of stuff. It drove me crazy!!!! Thank you!
Jan | May 23, 2007 at 8:54 pm | Permalink

Thanks! I use ObjectDock at the bottom of my screen and Firefox goes CPU crazy when that notification pops up.
darren r. | February 22, 2008 at 11:31 pm | Permalink

Thanks!

As firefoxy said so well “that little bugger annoyed the hell out of me”. Nice to have the “Downloads complete” box gone. I regularly use the active icons in the notification area (aka “system tray”) of the task bar. And that annoying download completion box would take its good time strolling on screen, and covering up the entire notification area for 10+ seconds.

That about:config is wonderful, I hadn’t seen that before.
Anonymous | February 26, 2008 at 11:36 pm | Permalink

Thanks for the tip Chris! This thing annoyed me to death when I was downloading multiple images in a row.
Nick | April 29, 2008 at 9:20 pm | Permalink

Thanks bro, you’re amazing.
ABC | May 13, 2008 at 6:14 pm | Permalink

OOOOOOOOOh yeah, thank u very much! I always looked in the options for a way to switch that notification off, cos when you do multiple dnloads it pops up repeatedly to say all downloads complete after each one completes (not when they all finish! and this slows my realplayer from starting and me from viewing my porn!! haha) I knew the “about:config” thingy was there now I know why its there was afraid to mess with it(cos I’m a scardey cat) but I will defo do this change right now and take a look at what else about:config can do!
DavidJCobb | June 4, 2008 at 4:53 pm | Permalink

Not sure about this, but judging by the option name, browser.download.manager.showAlertInterval allows you to set how long the notice appears. It appears to be measured in milliseconds.
douglas maenpaa | August 4, 2008 at 9:36 am | Permalink

Thanks Chris, this is amazing. Ive asked quite a number of people about “turning off those damn useless notifications” , and to no avail. I also checked everywhere I could in Firefox, and couldnt find anything. I was going to send Firefox an email, but I know no one would read it- in spite of the fact that everyone wants “feedback”!

This tip is an absolute gem !!
Balboa | August 4, 2008 at 10:06 pm | Permalink

Cant find browser.download.manager.showAlertOnComplete. please help, do you know how to turn off download manager too? thanks in advance.
Its Me | August 28, 2008 at 1:59 pm | Permalink

Thank you very much!
Its Me | August 28, 2008 at 1:59 pm | Permalink

Thank you very much!
Allium Cepa | September 11, 2008 at 5:55 am | Permalink

Thank you. It worked. Here is my tribute – I made a screenshot and uploaded it to ImageSnack (the “Website” link above). Hope it helps too. ->O
darkocean | December 9, 2008 at 7:25 pm | Permalink

Thank you that was annoying the piss out of me. I have over 200 bmps and gifs to download into this new computer as my old one died and having that damn thing show up every time was causing lag!
jasper | March 15, 2009 at 11:55 am | Permalink

thanks annoyed me today ^^
Ducky | May 22, 2009 at 5:06 pm | Permalink

Thank you very much for that; it was a little annoying! This has made downloading much more enjoyable ;0] Thank you once again.
Davide | June 9, 2009 at 6:02 pm | Permalink

Thank you very much!
zoster | June 13, 2009 at 10:03 pm | Permalink

thanks a lot! that alert is SO annoying.
dean | July 31, 2009 at 4:38 pm | Permalink

Fantastic!! Why can’t they have this as a check box option it seems to annoy just about everyone I know.
Anonymous | August 31, 2009 at 1:42 am | Permalink

thank you! this is beautiful!
Barbara | September 13, 2009 at 4:53 am | Permalink

Thanks for the tip! Although I have to admit, I worked it in reverse. My friend had the little pop up box but I didn’t — and I ***wanted*** it (takes all kinds, huh?).
Ernesto | November 5, 2009 at 11:42 am | Permalink

Muchas Gracias!!!, No deseaba esta notificaciÃ³n (”,)