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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
- This is actually a major reason why I still sometimes use the ancient IE. It should be implemented!
Elliot Kirk I think it's quite ridiculous that a basic browser feature such as this needs four pages of discussions (and counting)
Advanced Chrome (https://browser.taokaizen.com) manages downloads with the desire Open functionality (though not the other functionality discussed in this thread). Up to 999 downloads can be handled at the same time, which all stack and wait for user action. It provides Save, Open, and Discard buttons in its Download Shelf for each download:
- Save: Downloads to default folder or prompts user for location.
- Open: Downloads to temp folder and opens download when finish.
- Discard: Cancel download.
Source code is available at https://browser.taokaizen.com/download/patch.txt. Thank you to pedrosilva on the Vivaldi Forums for bringing this to my attention! Here is a screenshot from their website:
https://browser.taokaizen.com/images/screen1.jpg
https://browser.taokaizen.com/images/screen1.jpg
- Thanks for sharing! That looks to be exactly what I was thinking, will give it a try.
Elliot Kirk I'm a bit late in replying here, but my thoughts purely as an end-user are this:
I always want any file I download to be saved to disk first. Chrome had an annoying habit of opening a PDF inline but not saving it to the disk and it drove me up the wall.
I really like the approach of just saving to a folder and showing the document on a bar at the bottom of the screen. This makes it easy to download, and simple to open.
What I hate is that having opened the document it disappears from the bar. Having opened the document I frequently then decide to either rename or delete it, hence want to open the folder that contains it. But the bar has gone. So now I have to go and browse to my downloads folder then reopen the documents until I find the correct one and then act on it.
I would love if the bar stayed until dismissed, even better if it also contained options for Rename and Delete. Then I could do everything needed without leaving Edge.
dgkimpton I agree. The new system of showing downloads individually on a bar across he bottom of the web page is very simple and easy to use.
I originally hoped that the features from Classic Edge would be brought in, but after using the new version for many months now I actually think this is easier and more intuitive.
My older clients seem to like the simplicity.
My only wish now is that there was a button that appeared to 'Open when download is complete' instead of having to click ... before being able to check that option as your choice.
The option to be able to give a downloading file a permanent home should definitely not take 37 months!!! This is something that many of us do constantly. You cited the photos as a great personal example. But for work think of the accountants and company bookkeepers who store an record on their servers of all bank statements and invoices. Having to download (go find the crypic file in downloads) then find the directory containing the folder it should be in and renaming it is a huge waste of time. It's one of the reasons I do not know anyone in our organization using Edge.
- 3. i don't want to change it like leagacy edge nor ie because configuring wheater to download just make hard to download multiple objects.
it's quite annoying.
i can change name after downloading and delete afte rall - Any information about developing this at all, or it will never get to development ?
I do not know how about you guys. I am tired with Microsoft and this discussion.
I will use classic Edge as long as it is possible. I am tired to defend great features that exists there now.
I love side tabs, download question popup, reading list, favorites panel, inking with great support of Microsoft Surface Pen, minimalistic design, easy to use, sync with my iPhone, export PDF doc with ink, stability, minimum memory consumption, fast, reading mode for the websites, Microsoft translation plugin which is smart and fast, ask Cortana build-in, read aloud that is not buggy and brilliant web debugging and inspecting tools that been in Internet Explorer and Edge for ages. The emulation mode that I enables me to see how website behave on different devices.
I do not see any benefit in new Edge except one "the new privacy settings and control over the cookies". I do not care about any other new feature introduced in new Edge. It is being crazy unstable, unfriendly, hard to use (especially favorites), buggy sync process.
My family that I recommend to switch to new Edge is endless complaining. Unfortunately they are not tech enough to report it to Microsoft. Most of the users are not interested in giving opinions. They use browser as a tool not as a product. It is like a screwdriver to them. It have to work and end of sentence.
Fully agree with all you've said. Since Microsoft introduced the move to Chromium, the new browser is still broken in many ways and inferior to the proper Edge. I do not recommend using it in professional environments and a lot of companies I support or get involved with are not going to implement it, even moving away back to the classic Edge as long as it works. Surprisingly many work force are against the new Edge, as it breaks SharePoint sites, intranet resources and a whole lot of professional tools used on daily basis.
I'm now waiting for more than six months for this essential feature without any hint that there might be a plan for implementation.
It was a nice try. I'll return to Firefox.
Best regards
- Is there a user voice forum for edge Chromium?
Elliot Kirk, I'm sure you have the information you wanted from this. Could you give some kind of update where this feature stands? It's not like there are hundreds of features in Top Feedback. This is one of only 10 marked as In Discussion on the Top Feedback page (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/top-feedback-summary-for-april-28/m-p/1345337). Surely you can give some kind of a status update, even if it's only to say, "We're still XXXXXX." Will MS make some changes here? Is this request being rejected? Of all of those 10 points of Top Feedback, this one is BY FAR THE MOST IMPORTANT to my team and to me personally. We frequently have to fall back to IE just for this feature, since new Edge has replaced Classic Edge on our computers. Many of those other features are cosmetic. This one, like Inking on web pages, has a significant effect on usability.
GraniteStateColin https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/edge-not-receiving-notifications-when-closed/m-p/1301182#M28618 for me it's just as important it is, but it doesn't even make the top feedback.
GraniteStateColin Did you see the message posted on 04/16/20 that said they would have something out in Canary soon? I know it isn't a definite timeline, but they have responded to say that they are working to get something implemented.
Russ_Turrentine, when you mentioned a message from 4/16, did you mean the one from i-am-kent? I don't really know what that means. Does that mean we'll get an ability to open or run files directly without having to download them first or worry about deleting them to make the files go away? I'm afraid that post was too vague to tell us anything, and was part of the reason for my post.
I remain optimistic. Other than this (and the lack of inking, and I also appreciate the value of notifications working while Edge is closed), I love the new Edge. As it is, because other browsers don't do those things either, I strongly prefer the new Edge to all other browsers. It's the first browser that I can use to the exclusion of others, with this ONE exception, because only IE (and Classic Edge, but new Edge removed Classic Edge when I installed the release version) offers the equivalent file Open/Run function to classic Edge, which I frequently need.
New Edge is the first browser where I use it mostly to the exclusion of others. I still use Opera for the built-in VPN occasionally. I still use Firefox for some compatibility checks. I still use IE for Open/Run support on file downloads (and for the occasional plugin that only works with IE). I still use Chrome for Google services. But those are all rare operations. I have about 50 tabs open right now as I write this, which is low for me. Of those, only 5 are not in Edge (they're in Firefox in this case). Edge is spread over 4 different profiles, supporting 3 different Office 365 Work Accounts and 1 Microsoft Personal account, and a total of 8 windows.
- Any news on When/If we can expect this to "get moved forward" to development?
- Agreed. This has really been dragged out for far too long now. Let's get on with it.
I really just want it to be like the original Edge had it.
