How make Safari download PDF files instead of opening them in-page?
Firefox downloads my PDF files straight to "Downloads", Safari opens them "in-page".
I need PDF files to save to a file, not to open.
Is there a setting make Safari download PDF files instead of opening them in-page?
Open up a terminal window: ⌘space and type Terminal. Hit enter when its highlighted. When you get to the terminal prompt, type the following command:
defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitOmitPDFSupport -bool YES
You won't get a response at the command line, but once you restart Safari it will no longer open them in the browser.
To take it a step further while you're there, you can keep it from opening them once they are downloaded with this one:
defaults write com.apple.Safari AutoOpenSafeDownloads -bool NO
This last command achieves what the other answer suggests.
You can make Safari on the Mac download ANY files (mp3, mp4, jpg, pdf and more) by doing the following.
- Open the file (movie,music,etc) in Safari. That normally comprises of clicking the link to the pdf/movie/music etc.
- Select the url in the browser (by clicking it, or by pressing ⌘ cmdL).
- Hold option down (⌥ alt) and press Enter.
The file you are viewing downloads to the Downloads folder on the mac.
I've tested this with almost all file types possible. Very very useful little feature that unfortunately too few people know about.
Better yet, you can just hold down alt when you click.
As has been noted by others, the accepted answer that modifies the Safari plist does not work as of Sierra (Safari 10+?).
The method I used (on High Sierra) was to navigate to /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/ (terminal or via Go in finder). There were two plugins AdobePDFViewer.plugin and AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin. I moved both of these to the /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/Disabled\ Plug-Ins directory. Upon restart, Safari stopped automatically opening pdfs in its viewer.
I haven't been able to find the relevant .plist setting to disable or modify this behavior in a less "brute" way.
When you click on a link to a PDF, hold down the control key. A menu pops up. Select "Download Linked File as..."