Provide run / open / save / save as options when downloading files - Discussion

[Elliot Kirk]

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:

1. 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)
2. 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)
3. 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.
4. 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!

[#2]

@Elliot Kirk 

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

[#3]

@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. 

[#4]

@Colin - 

You might want to find a different VPN. The one that is built into Opera isn't that secure.

[#5]

Any information about developing this at all, or it will never get to development ?

[#6]

Is there a user voice forum for edge Chromium?

[#7]

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.

[#8]

This is what M$ do best! They REMOVE features with every new product.
- This happened with Skype, as soon as M$ bought it they removed half of the functionalities, introduced enormously stupid UI for mobile and altogether ruined a brilliant product.
- This happened with Lync, being replaced with Skype-for-business then Teams. Now Teams again missing extremely vital functions, like chatting directly with FEDERATED domain users, sharing files, direct calls with non-org-wide users and most important - CANNOT GET RID OF STUPID BANNERS WITHOUT TURN OFF NOTIFICATION SOUNDS ! How stupid is that?
- This happened with Windows, being removed old fashioned control panel features and replacing with "modern" alternatives that LACK functionality. Basically turning my 30" monitor into a tablet - reduced stuff that you can see on screen.

Now this is happening with EDGE, the only good feature that EDGE (and IE) had is to be able to "open/run" any file that you don't want to keep on the drive and you don't have to organize it and clean downloads folder all the time. Not to mention that this works perfectly when I need to download a zip file and then just grab one file form it. On old EDGE I click open, zip file opens and I drag one file out of it, close it and all that other crap is gone. Now I have to download it into downloads folder, go there, open it, and then go back to delete it manually cause I don't want those to pile up! Same with PDFs that I just want to look for 3 sec. and I don't need them, same with MSI installers ...

This is what M$ good at - removing functionality that are already existing to make it "better"

[#9]

@Yoneff, you are right about the Open/Run feature, which is the only part of your post that's on-topic, but that's also why the Edge Team started this thread -- to get our feedback to restore that function as they build a new Microsoft browser on the Chromium platform. Please refrain from general MS bashing, as non-constructive. (For what it's worth, I'd say that Teams is an absolutely fantastic app, better in virtually every way than Lync/Skype for Business, including your specific issue of file sharing -- Teams is so effective at sharing files, even just in chat outside a Team, that I find myself using email much less than I used to back on the Lync/S4B days, where I used to always go to email for file sharing because S4B was so clumsy, and you can stop banner notifications by adjusting Notification settings and setting it to "Only show in feed" (app only, not in the web version) or "None" (both web version and app) for which group of notifications you want to quiet).

[#10]

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

[#11]

@Elliot Kirk 

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.

[#12]

@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.

[#13]

@Elliot Kirk I think it's quite ridiculous that a basic browser feature such as this needs four pages of discussions (and counting)

[#14]

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

[#15]

Thanks for sharing! That looks to be exactly what I was thinking, will give it a try.

[#16]

This is actually a major reason why I still sometimes use the ancient IE. It should be implemented!

[#17]

@Elliot Kirk Is there any development on this issue ? At least, did MS put it into consideration?

[#18]

@Yoneff 

As of 6/18 this topic has moved from In Discussion to Planned. I guess that is a step in the right direction but it still doesn't give us a timeframe for when we can expect this feature.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/top-feedback-summary-for-june-18/m-p/1475468

[#19]

Option (1) is deadly needed. My Downloads folder is getting highly cluttered.

[#20]

@Elliot Kirk 

We need Option 1 (open without saving permanently).   

Our staff each open hundreds of reports and log files each day that they only need to quickly view without saving.  The documents are already stored until retention on the server/cloud hosts so there's zero need to keep the files on the PC and clutter up folders.

I'd also argue that Office documents should open automatically in Office applications without prompting, or there should be an option (with GPO/Intune settings) to configure this to happen.

[#21]

@matt_bits 

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.