Why does Safari not download files after Sequoia update?

macmustache wrote:

1. > You’ll need to review what 3rd party system modifications you have installed. The most likely candidate is some kind of file-sync system.

I don't think that's likely at all:

It's certainly "likely". That doesn't necessarily mean it is the cause for each and every problem. There are only a handful of people reporting this problem. The problem is quite unusual. There are only a handful of possible causes. The burden is on you to investigate. All we can do is provide possible suggestions for places to look.

For example, one person mentioned downloading files to a network volume. That's obviously not going to work. Network support in macOS gets worse every year. This kind of temporary-download-then-move-into-place is an operation that is well-known to fail on a network volume. 3rd party browsers aren't going to do that, so they would be less likely to fail in this situation. So if you are using a network volume, don't do that.

macmustache wrote:

In our setup no files are saved to local disk; all files are saved to NAS.

You're gonna have to change that.

I do not know any reason why this function should be removed in Sequoia, especially since Ask for each download remains a choice in the settings.

I believe this is a bug in Sequoia Safari, not a problem of user practice.

Oh it's certainly a bug, but not one that's likely to be fixed. The problem lies with how the Mac works (or doesn't) with network volumes. There is a slight chance that Apple could fix Safari to save files differently, but it's only slight chance. This would be a quick and easy fix, so if it does happen at all, it might show up in 2-3 months.

The networking is a complicated, longstanding bug for many years. Quite frankly, I don't know how you managed to make it to Sequoia at all saving all files to a network volume. That's remarkable. I congratulate the skill and competence of your IT team. Alas, everybody meets their match eventually.

Sequoia is quite new, and probably most users are defaulting to the Downloads folder.

New or old, pretty much everybody uses the default Downloads folder on the local drive.

This is a pretty basic support problem. If Apple breaks something for 50 million people, that's Apple's problem to fix. But if Apple breaks something for 50 people, that's your problem to fix.

> they began with not useful tests as reboot, reboot secure mode... So I left the support.

Yes that is a waste of time, indicates that the front line support is not familiar with this well established problem in Safari.

> They even told me to upgrade to Sequoia "to test".

That doesn't change anything

I just got the new M4 & all is updated and I still get this message, just like when I had my old M1 running the OS just before Sequoia. I have to use Chrome for any downloading. I have many different locations for downloading as I am specific to jobs I am working on. I never download to just "downloads".

Yes it is clearly a new problem from Safari 18. I can download or save a file from Safari to my NAS, but it finishes as a newfile.pdf.download . The solution for me is to manually rename the file on the NAS as newfile.pdf.down, so I can open that directory and drag the content (newfile.pdf ) next to the newfile.pdf.down directory. As a work-around I can save to NAS, then rename and move the content later... but it is very annoying.

I've seen an other behavior with a README.md file saved on the NAS and opened with Xcode ... during writing, if I save the file, xcode tells me after a few seconds/minutes the file as been changed by an other application on the NAS, and ask me to reload it (but not every time) ... so is there some after saving actions from MacOS that are triggered ? (as for the .download file that is moved when completed...) .

Often, when saving/loading Numbers spreadsheets on Google Drive, Numbers hangs and I have to reboot the pad... It is three different scenarios, but all related to network drives... and Apple applications.

Hope Apple will fix it...

what a disappointment, file downloads to NAS worked fine until I updated to Sequia / Safari 18......I've been trying to move away from chrome or other browsers and to use the native Apple browser but this was the final nail in the coffin of my efforts..

[Edited by Moderator]

So, after the update to Seqoia, I began experiencing issues downloading music files to my external drive.

This drive is currently formatted EXFAT32.

To solve the problem, I connected a different drive formatted MAC OS Journaled.

Problem solved!!

I reformatted the troubled drive to MAC OS Journaled and I’m back to normal.

Hope this helps!

I'm Sequoia 15.1.1. same issues, downloads to a NAS drive won't finish.

Can't move file error.

they look like this:

Wonderful Imagination copy.wav.download

My fix.

Duplicate the downloaded file, then remove the ".download". from the end.

This workaround seems to work for me until Apple fixes it.

Was having the same trouble with my Mac mini M1

( Cannot Move file) after downloading with safari!

Did all the trouble shooting steps for my computer, ended up wiping the drive on the mini then reloading it, then it would download to my downloads file and download to my NAS, but not to my External SSD.

So I backed up my data wiped the external SSD, reloaded it, and now my issue is resolved.

I can download to downloads file, to my NAS and my External SSD.

Have no trouble downloading with safari at all!

Hope this helps good luck to all!

I'm having a similar issue... I can download to my device but any external storage I connect gives me the cannot move file error. I have to resort to "show package contents" to locate the actual downloaded file but it's really annoying.

I'm having the same problem in Safari 18.0 running on Sonoma 14.7. I have no extensions installed in Safari.

When downloading a video file to an SMB share, Safari creates a <file name>.download package. At the end of the download, in the downloads panel of Safari, there's an error "cannot move file".

I can open the SMB share in Finder, then minor click on the <file name>.download package, and then select "Show Package Contents". My video file is in the package. I can drag the video file from the package to the target directory on the SMB share, so it's not a permissions issue on the SMB server.

Same download works fine in Chrome, no problems.

> So if you are using a network volume, don't do that.

Thank you. In our setup no files are saved to local disk; all files are saved to NAS. I do not know any reason why this function should be removed in Sequoia, especially since Ask for each download remains a choice in the settings.

I believe this is a bug in Sequoia Safari, not a problem of user practice.

> There are only a handful of people reporting this problem

Sequoia is quite new, and probably most users are defaulting to the Downloads folder.

January 2025 and this problem still exists.

Sequoia 15.2

Safari 18.2

I am a video editor and often need to download that are larger than the space available on the internal drive. We need to store our media on our NAS as it's part of our Media Asset Management system. Formatting this as APFS is not a viable solution.

Check to see if your downloads folder is set to Downloads. Settings>General>File Download Location