Forum Discussion
Provide run / open / save / save as options when downloading files - Discussion
Hello everyone and thanks for your significant interest in our feedback item of “Provide run / open / save as options when downloading files”. This has been a very interesting problem to think through. The downloads team would love your thoughts on whether we have identified the main customer needs such a feature would need to address.
We believe that there are three main things being asked for:
- You would like a way to open a file without having to keep it on your computer so that your downloads folder remains “clean” (eg. You want to view your bank statement, but want it deleted after you are finished looking at it)
- You would like a way to choose the filename and location to save the downloaded file so that you can better organize your downloads (eg. You download a family photo IMG_1502.jpg and want to rename it to Reunion2019.jpg and save it in your Photos folder)
- You still want a light-weight downloads process that does not require many clicks (eg. User wants to download multiple photos in succession and move them in bulk afterwards without having to click “Save” each time). This is what our downloads flow currently addresses; one click to download.
- You would like a way to easily switch between (1), (2), and (3) for different files you are downloading; one size does not fit all (eg. For bank statements, you want to just open it, and have it deleted afterwards. But for family photos, you want to be able to rename and save to a specific location).
Do you think we are thinking in the right direction? We are still exploring possible solutions to this problem and any additional feedback is most welcome!
Hello everyone,
Thanks so much for all the feedback provided regarding Open/SaveAs. We are now introducing an option for users using Edge version 87.0.629.0 and above to choose, for each download, whether they want to Open, Save As, Save, or Cancel a download. To enable this option, navigate to edge://settings/downloads and enable, "Ask me what to do with each download." Once you download a file after enabling that setting, you will have the option to Open, Save As, Save, or Cancel it. If you choose to open it directly, it will be downloaded to a temporary folder.
Additionally, we have exposed an option to directly delete downloaded files from your computer, in the browser so that you can easily clean up after downloading your files without leaving the browser.
To learn more about these features, please check out our post.
216 Replies
Thanks for the thoughtful replies everyone. I am the PM for downloads who wrote the copy for Elliot Kirk 's post on this thread.
It seems that (1) and (2) resonated most with people so far. With (3), I am speaking specifically about the current download experience, where all you need to do is click the link and the download starts.
Spartan's model requires an additional user interaction (clicking on Run/Save/Save as).
Is there any concern that if we adopt Spartan's model, there is an additional barrier to access your downloads? Instead of 1 click, it requires 2 clicks for each download to be saved to your computer if we take Spartan's Run/Save/Save as modal for each download.
i-am-kent, to your follow-up question on balancing speed (1-click) with power-flexibility that requires multiple clicks, for my part, I'd be fine if left click did a jump to a "default" behavior that could be set in settings (I'd set to pop-up a save dialog to prompt me where to save, but this would allow others to have it save immediately with a single click), and right-click provided an menu with the full list of options.
To make this as easy as possible for users to optimize, I'd suggest that initially when a user clicks on a file link, it provides a pop-up window showing the options:
- Save to default download location
- Save as... to specify save location
- Open/Run
And then let user select one as a default, where all remain available via right-click.
i-am-kent I'm not a technical person so I'm not sure if this is possible but for #3, could it be implemented like opening a new tab.
Where clicking a download link, by default, will just download it (like the current experience) but if the user holds down CTRL and then clicks the download link it then prompts the "Run/Save/Save As" (or the other way round).
i-am-kent I don't think it's a problem. if you have to make 2 clicks as it was in the old edge.
Hi Elliot Kirk
It's so good to see the team are listening to the feedback, specially this one,
- Yes, that's totally right. another example would be when a user downloads a software setup file and only wants to run it in order to install that software and does not need to keep that setup file afterwards. I think the team should be familiar with the "run / open / save / save as options" because it's been one of the unique features of all Microsoft browsers such as Internet Explorer and the classic Edge browser.
- Right again, this is where "save as" comes into play where we can choose both the file name and location.
- Yes, with options like "run / open / save / save as" available, it will decrease the user interactions because without those options, user would need to manually open file explorer, go to downloads folder and do the rest.
- Not really. there doesn't need to be different behaviors for different file types. again just like in Internet Explorer and the classic Edge 🙂
- I want to add a 5th suggestion which I really hope you consider it because it's very useful, I've explained all the aspects of it on a different thread that I made a while ago
the title is "Let us Choose Download Location For each File Type separately in Edge insider browser" please take a look
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Discussions/Let-us-Choose-Download-Location-For-each-File-Type-separately-in/m-p/919520
Make the download page as an APP and keep downloading when Edge is closed.
It's a easy way to manage download.
HotCakeX You are right. the ability to open a file without saving was a feature of Microsoft browsers. Hopefully the new edge will also acquire this.
Elliot Kirk I'd like to see the file opening and save feature as it's done in the old edge. For example. I click on the link to download the mp3 file. no matter what size it is and should be asked to open the and store. So it works in the old edge. the same way with program installation files. very convenient when I can install the program without keeping it in the folder.
1 (open a file) - yes! Often I just need to print a PDF file, but in Insider Edge I have to download it and stick it on my desktop first. (I don't put temporary files in my downloads folder because I'll lose them.)
2 (rename a file) - Sometimes! The real problem with the downloads folder is how confusing it gets. For example, I have no idea what
is, but it went into my downloads folder last month. Twice. (If you're wondering, I opened it and it stands for "FOSSwire Unix/Linux Reference".) There is currently no option to "Move and rename" a file directly from the downloads bar. One must either click on Options, then Show in Folder, or else turn on "Ask where to save each file before downloading".
3 (download many things) - Maybe? I don't download multiple files very often. I have done it once in recent memory; I had "Ask where to save each file before downloading" turned on at the time. This made the situation much slower. However, I tried out the "default" in Edge Dev just now, and similarly to the issue with 2, there is no button to "move all to folder" after the files have been downloaded and are visible in the downloads bar.
4 (doing all 3 together) - 99% of the time, I want to "run / open" my files. My advice will probably heavily favor this style. When trying to come up with a solution, the big question I had was "should we rename and move the files as each is downloaded or after all have been downloaded?" If we choose what happens to each file as it is downloaded, we have to "confirm" each download as it happens. With a lot of files, that's a lot of confirmation clicks. Thus, it would be better to save every file to the default folder with one click, but then allow the user to edit the file name/location directly from the Downloads Bar. Thus, each file would have options to "open/run", "move to folder" and "rename" from its options menu in the downloads bar, and on the right side of the bar, the Show all button would be complemented with "move all" and "open all" buttons. If you download a variety of files all at once, you might want to save most of them but also open one or two. An [x] could be placed to the right of each file's Options button, and its tooltip would say "close" to prevent confusion with "deleting" the recently downloaded file.
There are two obvious issues with my proposal:
A: If you move a few files to custom locations, then "move all" files, what happens? Edge can't force-remove a file from the downloads bar immediately after it has been moved by the user; many people would probably want move and then access their files.
B: The term "open" is very problematic when files are automatically downloaded. In Classic Edge, there was a clear choice between opening OR saving a file. In my system, Saving THEN opening sounds like the file will remain in the downloads folder. Synonyms for open, like "view" or "open temporarily", do no better to address this problem.
Considering these problems, my proposal might not be possible at all. I hope it is, or that this post is helpful more generally, at least.
You seem to have a really nice idea there. It preserves the speed of the current system while allowing the run/save as functionality with minimal user interaction.
I hadn't noticed the functionality was missing but this is definitely an improvement.
- I just want to add that Dinosaur Tim's terminology of "Mark as temporary" solves part B of my proposal's issues. Personally, I'm pretty wary of automatic file deleting software. However, this pushes opening a file from two clicks in Classic (One click to begin dialog + one click on the "Open/Run" button) while it's 4 clicks in the new system. (Click to begin downloading + Click to open the options menu + click to mark as temporary + click to open/run). We could get this down to three clicks by calling it "Open as temporary file" or "Run as temporary app" instead. Obviously, when you're downloading something that will be deleted soon after, you'll want to open or run it right away.
As for part A, I think that if one of the files has been moved to a custom location before the user selects "move all", then Edge should NOT override that one file's special location. There are two ways this could be visually indicated. Edge could show relocated files on the left side of the downloads bar, putting a divider bar between them and the rest of the files. This is not ideal; it moves the file from under the mouse to a different part of the screen. A better way would be to show the icon of the file within a folder, and possibly tint the file's tile in the downloads bar a slightly different color.WolfIcefangYes I forgot to include that in my mockup, but an "Open and Delete" button would work nicely right under the existing Open button on the options menu.
Seeing as the classic Edge Open button opened things once and then kept the file in a hard-to-find temporary cache, deleting the file when Edge was closed, I assume that enabling the proposed option to delete recent downloads on close will mimic this old behavior. With that option enabled, clicking the "Open and Delete" button is functionally no different than simply opening the file by clicking on the filename. The file gets deleted when the browser is closed in both cases, except this way the file is in a more intuitively accessible location, in case you want to click it twice or save it for some reason. Since they do the same thing, I expect people will use the "Open and Delete" button less and less, so the extra click to use it will have less and less consequence.
As far as representing moved files, I like your color and folder icon ideas. Another option might be a checkmark over the file icon (indicating done moving/organizing). And yes, the Move All button should only affect unmoved files still in the downloads folder.
