Forum Discussion
MicrosoftAnnouncing the Open/Save as/Save and Delete prompts for downloads!
Update: Open/SaveAs is now available on Edge Stable ( version >= 86.0.622.38)
Greetings, Microsoft Edge Insiders!
As a part of our top feedback, we have been looking at implementing features from Microsoft Edge legacy. One of those items is a feature asking users if they want to Open, Save As, Save, or Cancel a download. This week, we're excited to announce that this setting is now available in our Dev and Canary channels! We expect all builds with version >= 87.0.629.0 to have this feature.
To enable it, navigate to edge://settings/downloads and toggle on, "Ask me what to do with each download." Once you download a file after enabling that setting, you will see options to:
- Open the file, which downloads it to a temporary folder and opens the file. This temporary folder will attempt to clear itself whenever you start a new browser session
- Save as, which opens the file explorer, allowing you to rename and choose where the file is saved
- Save the file, located under the ... button, which saves the file to your default downloads folder (you can also change this on the Downloads settings page)
- Cancel the file download entirely, this is also located under the ... button
Another feature we're adding is the ability to delete downloads directly from the browser itself. If you head to the Downloads page, you can now right-click on a downloaded item (or the ... menu for the item in the download shelf/bar) and select "Delete file." Once you do this, the file will be deleted from your computer. We hope that this will help users who like to download files automatically while still keeping their downloads folder clean.
We encourage you to give these changes a try! Have a suggestion on how to improve these new download features? Navigate to the browser's ... menu > Help and feedback > Send feedback to let us know your thoughts.
- The Microsoft Edge Product Team
There is absolutely an extra click after this change.
Before: Click link > Change folder if needed > Save
Now: Click link > Click Save As > Change folder if needed > Save
Additionally that extra click happens at the bottom of the screen (whereas the file browse dialog appears in the middle of the screen), so that extra click is probably far from where your mouse cursor was.
Would appreciate an option between the two like the old prompt where to save we had before. Prompting what to do every time and not prompting at all seem like two extremes. When we had the option originally to just specify where to save using the standards windows save dialog, which seems like a middle ground.
Anyone's workflow that involves downloading a lot of stuff to different directories will be impacted by the removal of the just prompt to save. Either having to click the link, then move to the bottom of the window and find the download button, then click the save as or download everything to a set directory and sort them out later. Seems like a bad UX design.
I'm not against adding additional ways to solve the original issue, but the complete removal of the old way.
Reverend EvvL X same here !! The old way work best for me. Pls i-am-kent get reminded that to keep 2 option for both old and new.
Thanks for implementing this feature. Loved it for opening PDF and other document files temporarily. However, there is one thing that I would like to see changed about it. Whenever, you click "Save As" the file explorer now always opens to the default download path (usually C:\User\Downloads). I find this a bit annoying since there are times where I have a bunch of separate files I want to download that I want to put in a different folder (eg. folder on the Desktop). That means that every time I click "Save As", I have to navigate to that Desktop folder, which is a pain. I would have preferred the old way of how downloads were handled - meaning the "Save As" button opens to the last folder that you saved a download in.
So the workflow would be: Download a file -> click "Save As" -> File Explorer opens to "Downloads" -> I navigate to my folder on the Desktop -> Save the file in that folder -> I download another file -> Click "Save As" -> File Explorer opens to THE FOLDER ON THE DESKTOP -> I save the file on that Desktop folder
If you guys could modify the behaviour to this (or let the user choose the behaviour), that'd be great.
jchow It might be a nice idea to always open the last location a file downloaded to when you clicked 'Save as', but doesn't that risk that sometimes you might inadvertently lose a file you have downloaded? If this is the case.
Something I am missing is that the 'Downloads' option no longer shows the location of where files have been downloaded to.
In Classic Edge this didn't matter too much because the nice little 'Downloads' tab was incorporated into the Favourites and Reading List button, but hunting for where files have been downloaded to in Chromium Edge takes at least two more clicks and becomes cumbersome.
As shown in the attached screenshot on a mac, the current 'Downloads' button from the Settings and more button no longer shows WHERE the item is kept - it just provides a link to 'show in finder' (or File Explorer on Windows 10)
- The new flyout hopefully will take care of it.
As well as also wanting to have the option of the previous behaviour, the other thing I'd need before considering Edge a usable browser for me WRT Downloading is some additional information on the download on the shelf while the download is happening. Specifically I need it to show the download speed alongside the 'x of y' progress. Especially on a big download, seeing the download speed has slowed or gone to zero is often the quickest way to see something has gone wrong with the download.
- That's a great idea, David.
Perhaps there could be a tool-tip type mouseover window that appears displaying something like:
- Progress (graphical, percent, time elapsed / remaining and bytes downloaded)
- Download speed
- Total file size to be downloaded, if reported by the server
- Source URL (since sometimes due to redirects the downloaded file receives a different filename than was in the URL) and/or MIME type - Until we have an ideas section to upvote things, we need to just submit feedbacks individually
i-am-kent I've been enjoying the Canary build of Edge for a while now and this is the first major change that I absolutely hate. I have to download lots of files to different locations and prefer the option to always prompt to Save As and to default to the last folder saved to. With this option, I now have to click the link, click Save As on the bottom bar, then navigate to the folder I want to save to each time. Best case scenario (with a pinned folder), I now have to go through 4 clicks instead of 2 in order to save a file to the last folder I was saving to.
You sure?
- yes, in that place whould be 'save' and 'save as' as an option.
With the introduction of this feature, the Save As no longer remembers the last save location. That's probably a bug but it makes this feature very annoying.
Even if the last location was still used when I select Save As, you've basically added an extra click to get there and I'm not sure what you've actually enabled here. Before this "feature" I could cancel the download when the save to dialog showed up. I could open the file from the bar below by just clicking on it. Am I missing something here?
Please add a way to turn this off and use the current behavior.
A much more useful feature would be the option for downloads from different sites to remember their own save locations or make the list of last save locations consistent and correct. Features that might save time for people instead of making basic tasks harder
IshaiH, yes, you are missing something. 🙂
The previous "Open" option required first saving the file. This created not just an extra click, but a whole workflow change compared with Legacy Edge and IE to deal with files that are intended to be opened once for a few seconds, but not saved -- pictures, audio files, executables (just run them), etc. Before this change, you either left the files to accumulate or had to add a step to your workflow to manually navigate to the folder (potentially difficult if you save downloads to different locations) and remove the files that you never wanted to save in the first place. This is a HUGE improvement.
Having said that, I agree with the criticism that Save As should not always revert to the Downloads folder. I would prefer that it remember and go to the last Save As location.
GraniteStateColin That's an odd behavior to me but you do you, I guess.
For me, it's rare that I download a file for a single use and want it deleted. It's definitely not worth the extra clicks on every download.
What would make sense is to make this an option. If you want a new download hidden at the bottom of the screen waiting for you to hit Save As instead of the file dialog just showing up, fine, for those of us who don't want that option, let us turn it off.
People who download a lot of files will find this new feature very annoying. I know I do.
In fact, now that it's made it's way to the prod version of Edge, I'm switching back to Chrome.I really only checked this page to see if i-am-kent ever responded to the many comments complaining about this feature.
illtechthatThanks for the team's work on this, but I have to agree with the other poster this has just slowed down my workflow a lot!
Expected behavior: With the "always ask me where to save.." option when I download something I am prompted with a Windows Explorer window to select the download location. I also have a one click option to save in default location (remembered per website).
Actual behavior: Takes an extra unnecessary button click to download the file and an extra unnecessary click to save the file to default location.
This is especially annoying when saving multiple files from websites that I want to rename before saving.
I agree with Reverend EvvL X, azuravian, acho90 , IshaiH Please consider reverting to the previous popup or having an extra option "bypass extra download prompt before showing save as window"
Created an account to post this because this is the first major change that is annoying enough that I would switch back to Chrome if it's not reverted.
Thank you.
i-am-kent unfortunately, you totally killed remembering the last save folder. Let's say I want to save five files into the non-default folder. If I click Save as, I get the 'save' dialog with the default folder. If I click Save, I save to the default folder automatically.
What you could have done is:
Save - default folder
Save as - last saved folder
As for now, I had to turn off the download prompts, as they provide very little benefit. Instead, they slow down downloading small files that get completely downloaded even before you click anything.
why is it so hard to just click on "save as" and then choose your download location? while maintaining other options such as open, cancel and save. this new settings adds useful features at the cost of 1 click. I don't see any problem with this. it takes a lot more clicks to just switch between multiple download options if they offered it in settings.
HotCakeX, I like it the way it works now, BUT, to be fair to the critics, if MS had enabled this feature to work the way it did in Legacy Edge and IE, that would have been better and prevented these complaints: it used to be the same setting option as now (flag for prompt for save location or specify universal download destination in settings) but a single click always did that. Right-click would bring up additional options, including Open. I never thought, "Oh, I don't like that I need to right click to Open a file." Instead of delivering the most common request here (make it work like IE and Legacy Edge), they created a new, Google Chrome-style button option at the bottom of the screen. Maybe that's because it's not feasible to add a right-click option in a Chromium browser, or maybe they didn't like that from a UI design perspective (right-click is not generally required in a browser), but in terms of function, that would have kept everyone happy.
I also think there's merit to the critics' point that appearing at the bottom of the window can be a hassle or worse (if the bottom of the window is off the bottom of the screen). If no right-click, then presenting an anchored pop-up at the point of the click to download would at least ensure they don't have to go looking for the Save As button somewhere else on the window.
To be clear on my own view here, I'm happy with the way it works now and LOVE THE OPEN OPTION. I'm just saying that I would also be happy with those changes noted above, which I think would be better for those other users who feel they lost some function with the new change.
i-am-kent It's great to see options being provided that fit with other workflows and I've really enjoyed watching Edge go from strength to strength.
Unfortunately, this change is one that negatively impacts my own workflow which I have been used to using for decades now across different browsers. And from comments it seems many others feel the same way too. The new method requires more mouse movement and extra clicks which slows things down making me feel less effective in Edge.
Allow me to explain my expected Save As behaviour as was previously in Edge (and is currently in most other browsers) if I have set it to ask me each time I download. For reference, I always download to subdirectories within my default Downloads folder - sometimes a newly created one and sometimes to one already existing.
Previous Workflow (and current in other browsers)
- I would (for example) open a page on GOG.com under my account and download multiple files associated with the same game required to install it on my PC.
- Click the link of the first file -> a Save As window will popup -> I create a new directory under my default Downloads directory named the same as the game -> hit Enter with my left hand for the download to begin.
- Move the mouse only a small distance down to the next link in the list -> click the link of the second file -> a Save As window will popup already pointing to the newly created game directory -> immediately hit Enter (as my left hand is still on the key from the previously download).
- Repeat until all files are downloaded.
The new workflow
- Open a page at (for example) GOG.com of a game I own with multiple files I need to download before installing.
- Click the link of the first file -> move my mouse to the bottom of the screen.
- Click Save As -> wait for a Save As window to popup -> create a new directory named the same as the game -> hit Enter
- Move my mouse back up the screen -> click the link of the second file -> move my mouse to the bottom of the screen.
- Click Save As -> a Save As window will popup -> hit Enter
- Repeat with much more mouse movement and clicks when previously it was a very quick process
It would be amazing to have the ability to choose between the old way of the Save As popup appearing as the first step or the new Save As with the options on the bar at the bottom of the screen.
I feel giving the option would allow the majority of users to really soar in their respective workflows.
(Edit: Granted, I moved to Edge from Chrome after it switched to Chromium so maybe I'm just used to decades worth of Chromium behaviour?)
This option to save to a temporary folder does not work with enabled group policy: AutoOpenAllowedForURLs or AutoOpenFileTypes, the files are still saved to the Download folder.
