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**Category:** Development\
**Created:** [November 21, 2024, 2:51pm UTC](https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/options-html-as-popup-file-picker/137368 "2024-11-21T14:51:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1
**Author:**  [@irvinm](https://discourse.mozilla.org/u/irvinm)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2024, 2:51pm UTC](https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/options-html-as-popup-file-picker/137368/1 "2024-11-21T14:51:48Z")
I’m working on an addon that I would like to support export and import of some rules that would be stored. Currently I have an import button on options.html which opens a file picker to choose the input JSON file and will parse and store the information into the addon.
This solution works fine if options.html is in a separate tab, but does not work when it is just being used as a popup from clicking on the addon icon. It looks to me that the popup closes once the file picker comes up. This makes sense to me from a popup behavior perspective.
Is there a way to keep the popup open even during the file picker process? Or do I need to push the import/export process only when options.html is in a separate tab?
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**Author:**  [@juraj.masiar](https://discourse.mozilla.org/u/juraj.masiar)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2024, 8:40pm UTC](https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/options-html-as-popup-file-picker/137368/2 "2024-11-21T20:40:15Z")
Sadly, it’s a very old Firefox bug:
> **[1378527 - popups opened from a panel cause the panel to close](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1378527)**
>
> NEW (nobody) in Core - XUL. Last updated 2024-11-02.
The best you can do is:
1. vote for that bug in bugzilla 🙂
2. detect that your popup.html is opened in the popup, and in that case, instead of “input” show something like this:
NOTE:
I’m pretty sure this can happen also with exports!
Some users have “Always ask where to save file” option enabled in Firefox, so for them Firefox will again show a target download folder picker and the export will then fail.
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**Author:**  [@dotproto](https://discourse.mozilla.org/u/dotproto)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2024, 1:35am UTC](https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/options-html-as-popup-file-picker/137368/3 "2024-11-22T01:35:09Z")
I haven’t tested this, but I think it would work. Your background script runs in the background page, so in the background you could
1. use `document.createElement()` to create an anchor tag
2. give it the [`download`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a#download) attribute
3. set the URL to the file that you want the user to download
4. the append it to the background document
5. use JavaScript to call `.click()` on the element
I _think_ that would allow you to download the file unless the user has the “Always ask where to save file” setting enabled as @juraj.masiar described.
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**Author:**  [@irvinm](https://discourse.mozilla.org/u/irvinm)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2024, 1:14pm UTC](https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/options-html-as-popup-file-picker/137368/4 "2024-11-22T13:14:33Z")
Yeah, this is what I will end up doing. I’ll probably just create a link/button on the options page to open a new tab with the import/export options. (I did vote for the bug and I will watch it)
Thank you.