The new Microsoft Edge Chromium is a significant improvement over the old Edge browser. It seamlessly syncs your data across devices, supports the ability to load sites as PWAs, supports a large library of extensions, and more. But if you want the browser to behave the way you want, you still have to take matters into your own hands.
Handle the situation with file downloads. Microsoft Edge Chromium saves them in the Downloads folder of your PC or Mac by default. This makes sense, but isn’t ideal if you’re doing lots of downloads on a regular basis. The downloads folder is located on the primary partition and filling it with a bunch of large files is not a good idea if storage space is important.
Fortunately, it is possible to completely change the default downloads folder for Microsoft Edge Chromium to another location within the primary partition or to a different partition or drive. So, let’s look at how you should do this, and then review a few other download-related settings that might be of interest to you.
Change Download Location in Microsoft Edge Chromium
Changing the default download location in Microsoft Edge Chromium is incredibly easy. While you can configure the browser to save your downloads to pretty much any location you want, it’s generally a good idea to avoid setting a folder on a removable drive as the default download location. Unless you plan to remove it while using the browser, that is.
Stage 1: Open the Edge menu (click the three-dot icon in the upper-right corner of the screen) and then click Settings.
Step 2: Click the Downloads side tab.
Stage 3: Click the button labeled Change.
Step 4: Navigate to where you want to change the default download location, and then select a folder. After that, click on Select Folder (or Select in macOS).
Exit the Edge Settings panel. When you start a new download, Microsoft Edge Chromium will now download to the new location.
Other Download Related Settings
Microsoft Edge Chromium has various other download-related settings, all of which can be incredibly useful at some point. Let’s take a look at them below.
Ask Before Download
Rather than relying on a single download location, you can configure Microsoft Edge Chromium to prompt you for a new location each time you start a download.
To do this, go to the Downloads screen in Edge Settings (the same screen that lets you change the default download location). Once there, turn on the switch next to ‘Ask where to save each file before downloading’.
The next time you start a new download, select a folder from the File Explorer or Finder window that appears, and then click Save.
However, Microsoft Edge Chromium will always remember the last selected download location and show it by default. This will help make things faster when saving batch files in one location.
Download PDF Files
Microsoft Edge Chromium has a good built-in PDF viewer and by default opens all PDFs in it. But if you prefer to download your PDFs, perhaps opening them in a dedicated PDF reader instead, there is a built-in setting that can help you do that.
Stage 1: Visit the Edge Settings panel, click Site Permissions, and then click PDF Documents.
Step 2: Turn on the switch next to ‘Always open PDF files externally’.
The next time you click the link to a PDF file, you will be greeted with the Download File button. Click on it to download the file locally.
Clear download history
Worried about someone else poking around checking your download history? Why don’t you clean? Press Ctrl+Shift+Delete (or Cmd+Shift+Delete on macOS) to open the Clear Browsing Data dialog. Select Download History, specify a duration, then click Clear Now. You can also clear site cookies and browser cache at this time.
Or you can set Microsoft Edge Chromium to delete your browsing history every time you exit. Here’s how to do it.
Stage 1: Open the Edge Setting panel, click the Privacy and Services side tab, and then click ‘Choose what to clear each time you close the browser’.
Step 2: Turn on the switch next to Download History.
Microsoft Edge Chromium deletes your browsing history when you exit all browser windows. Alternatively, you can use InPrivate browsing windows to stop your download history from being saved in the first place.
Start Download
Changing the default download location in Microsoft Edge Chromium is absolutely necessary if you want full control over your file downloads. Also the ability to configure the browser to ask for a new location every time can be incredibly useful, but it can be a bit annoying at times.
Fortunately, Edge’s download location settings can be changed easily, so it’s not like you’re stuck with your changes forever. So feel free to try anything you want.
Next: Have you ever wondered how the new Microsoft Edge Chromium performs against Mozilla Firefox? Find out now.
