How To Control Where Downloaded Files Are Saved on a Mac

hi this is Gary with macmost.com let's talk about controlling where files go when you download them [Music] macmost is brought to you thanks to a great group of more than a thousand supporters go to macmost.com patreon there you could read more about the patreon campaign join us and get exclusive content and course discounts so when you download something say in your web browser it will by default go to the downloads folder but it doesn't have to you can customize where it goes to or control it on a case-by-case basis so for instance here I am at my own website and there's a download here for a keyboard shortcut PDF if I click on it it will automatically download into the downloads folder I can find that in the dock or just switch to the finder and create a new finder window I can then go to downloads and look and that's where I'll find it Well what if I don't want it to go there well there's a setting in Safari for that go to Safari settings make sure you're on General and right there you'll see file download location and you'll see it set to the downloads folder so you could change that by simply selecting other and then you can choose any folder you want including creating your own folder so for instance if you'd rather have a downloads folder in your documents folder you can just create one there and set it to that now another option is you can go and choose ask for each download so now when you go to download something like this it's actually going to prompt you and you can navigate to wherever you want in the finder and save that file there so with every download you can specify exactly where you want it to go perhaps skipping the steps where you go to your downloads folder get that file and then move it to a more permanent location now even if you have it set to a folder like the downloads folder you can still control it on a case-by-case basis instead of clicking here you can hold the control key and click or do it two finger click on the trackpad or right click on your mouse and then you get the contacts menu and the contacts menu has a download linked file which will do the same thing as just clicking it but also download link file as and then you can specify a location even if that's not your setting in Safari settings so if we want most of your files to go to the downloads folder but occasionally you want to specify exactly where a file goes that's the way to do it and here's another technique you should know about and that is in Safari if you click on a link what happens to it depends on the website the website actually has the power to specify whether you open the file in the browser or whether it downloads for instance a PDF could very easily just be another web page that you go to view that's just a PDF so sometimes you'll click on a PDF and it actually opens up in Safari and then you have to go to file and save to save it other times you click on a PDF like this and the server says no this is that download just go right to downloading this file don't display it but even when it's going to display a PDF you have the option to circumvent that and just download it watch the status bar at the bottom and you can see it shows the link to the PDF now if I hold the control key down see how it says display a menu for and that's where we get the contacts menu but if I hold the option key down notice now how it says download so instead of doing whatever the server wants now it's specifically going to download this file note that when you control click and you see download linked file that's actually doing the same thing so this isn't necessarily redundant it because in some cases clicking a link will display the PDF but control clicking and choosing download linked file or simply option clicking will download the file rather than display it now whatever browser you're using you've got a setting for where downloads go so for instance in Chrome here if I go to setting there are a ton of settings so if I just search for downloads I can see here this whole section for downloads and there's a location and I can change that location or turn the switch on for ask where to save each file before downloading so basically the same thing just shown in a different way now other apps sometimes have download settings as well for instance in the mail app if you go to mail settings and then you're in general you can see there's a downloads folder option here as well and you can set it to any location that you want so mail can maintain a different downloads folder than Safari now here's another thing to note if you're using iCloud drive and you go to the top level of iCloud Drive you'll notice that there's a downloads folder there as well so I've got a downloads folder on iCloud drive but also in my home folder I've got a downloads folder there what's with the two downloads folders well the downloads folder in your home folder that's the default one for use on your Mac it's a local folder that's not part of iCloud drive at all it's in your home folder the downloads folder in iCloud Drive well the reason that's there is because the iPhone and iPad don't have local storage at least not in the same way that the Mac does so the downloads folder is part of iCloud drive there so even if you've never created or used a downloads folder in iCloud drive on your Mac this download folder is going to be there because your iPhone or your iPad needs it and if you like you could set your downloads holder on your Mac in Safari and other apps to the iCloud Drive downloads folder as well although in general it's best to avoid that because a lot of times on our Macs we're downloading large files say large video files application installers things like that you don't really need to have an iCloud drive at least not at first so it's best to download those locally not have them sync across all your devices your iPhone and iPad won't even be able to use app installers that are for the Mac for instance and then just simply maintain two separate downloads folders knowing the iCloud Drive ones primarily for iOS and iPad OS and your home folder downloads folder is primarily for your Mac also note that after you've downloaded a file then you should get a button here in the toolbar for Safari it won't appear there until you've downloaded something if you click there it will show you your recent downloads and you can clear this list it won't remove the file from your downloads folder or wherever you saved it it's just clearing this list out that's a handy list of files you recently downloaded the idea being you downloaded something and you want to get quick access to it without having to switch to the finder first you can go in here you can click on this little magnifying glass here and it will reveal the file in the finder or you can double click on it right there and it will open it for you skipping the finder so it's a quick way to download and then use something without having to leave Safari in between there's a setting for this as well it's right under the file download location you can see remove download list items and you can have it automatically do it after a day whenever you quit Safari right after the download is done so in other words that list will just show downloads in progress not completed ones or set it up for manually so keep the downloads listed there until you select one and remove it hope you found this useful thanks for watching [Music] if you like this video click the Thumbs Up Button below to let me know I publish new tutorials each weekday hit the Subscribe button so you don't miss out

Channel: macmostvideo

Views: 42,802

Keywords: mac downloads folder, downloads folder on mac disappeared, change mac downloads location, change mac downloads folder, mac default download folder, mac downloads save as

Id: _tBx1TyU2UM

Length: 7min 15sec (435 seconds)

Published: Wed May 24 2023