Safari's downloads list can only hold the twenty most-recent downloads, even when set to only remove items from the list manually. That's absurd.

[doyouspeakwingdings]

This appears to be a Safari thing, not a Safari 15 thing. It's also a bit ridiculous. I just downloaded ~50 files. Some of the downloads did not complete; some didn't even start... but there is no way to know that in Safari, since the failed downloads were all toward the beginning. Meaning they are no longer even visible in Safari's downloads list.

Safari's preferences allow the user to control the automatic removal of items from Safari's downloads list. Sounds good, right? What they don't tell you, is that even if you turn off automatic removal, setting the preference to remove items "Manually," it will still only keep the twenty most-recent downloads.

That is absurd. Downloading many files and wanting to be able to manage those downloads - including seeing them in the downloads list of the browser I used to download them - is not an unusual use case. Even downloading relatively few files, let's say a couple of files per day, there is no possible way to retain your own download history for more than a week or two?

It's not like Safari only holds the twenty most-recent websites you visited...

Please tell me I'm missing something.

 

[bogdanw]

The list of downloads is stored in ~/Library/Safari/Downloads.plist
I clear it everyday, so I can't tell how much info can it hold.

 

[doyouspeakwingdings]

It's stored (and presented to the user) far more accessibly as well. Click the down arrow in the upper-right corner of the browser. There's the downloads list. It is also accessible through Cmd+Opt+L, or View --> Show Downloads.