Downloads folder settings in Google Chrome
You can manage the Chrome Downloads folder in following ways.
How to See Downloads History in Google Chrome?
From browser, you can directly and quickly access the download folder in your computer without opening it through file explorer. You can also search through all the downloaded documents in the past.
Navigation Path: Click three dots … on top right corner of screen in Chrome browser (computer and Android mobile) → Downloads.
You can also access the ‘Downloads’ page, by pasting ‘chrome://downloads/’ in address bar of Chrome browser and hitting Enter.
On the ‘Downloads’ page, click three dots on the top right corner and select option either to clear the downloads history from web browser or you can open the ‘Downloads’ folder in your computer.
You can also delete individual download entries by clicking ‘x’ icon on any entry. If you do not remember the ‘Downloads’ folder in computer, you can click ‘Show in folder’ option on this downloads page in Chrome browser, to directly access the file in your computer.
Pro Tip: Please note that chrome tracks your downloads from your device. If you have deleted a file explorer of your computer, it will be stroked out at downloads page in Chrome. You cannot recover a file from Chrome, if you have deleted it from your computer.
Change Default Download Location
You can change the location of folder in your computer where all downloads (documents, files, images, fonts) should be saved.
Click three dots … on top right corner of screen in Chrome browser → Settings → Advanced → Downloads.
Click on ‘Change’ button and select your preferred location for future downloaded files in Chrome.
You can instruct Chrome to ask you each time the desired location for downloads. You can do this by toggling ON the button next to ‘Ask where to save each file before downloading’ option.
Decide Whether to Open o PDF File in Chrome or Download PDF in Computer
To access settings for PDF documents, paste ‘chrome://settings/content/pdfDocuments’ in address bar of Chrome browser and press Enter.
You can also access these settings through this navigation.
Click three dots … on top right corner of screen in Chrome browser → Settings → Privacy and security → Site Settings → Additional content settings → PDF documents.
Here, I prefer to select ‘Open PDFs in Chrome’ option, so that Chrome opens the PDF document in web browser window. It will save memory space on my computer for unnecessary PDF downloads. After viewing the PDF document, if I wish to download the document, I will have the option to do so.
However, if you like, you can select ‘Download PDFs’ option for quick downloading all PDF documents from websites.
It is worth noting that Chrome browser automatically blocks malicious and harmful PDFs and prevents them from downloading to your device. [RD]
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