How to Change the Default Download Location in Windows 10

Put your Microsoft Edge downloads (almost) wherever you want

What to Know

• Edge: Select Main menu >Settings >Downloads. Under Location, select Change. Go to the preferred destination, choose Select Folder.
• Windows 10: Go to Settings >System >Storage >Change where new content is saved. Choose the default locations for various filetypes.
• It may take some time for files to move from an old path to a new path.

Many users enjoy the updated features of Microsoft Edge, but one feature missing from the original Internet Explorer is the ability to change the download location directly from the browser. In this guide, we show you how to do that on any Windows 10 device.

How to Change Default Download Location in Windows 10 for Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge has an easy way of setting the download location. There are also some additional settings in the Windows 10 settings to change where other files are kept.

Open Microsoft Edge.

Select Settings and more (the 3 horizontal dots) in the upper-right corner or press Alt+X.

Select Settings.

Select Downloads from the menu bar. Under the Location heading, select Change.

Browse to your desired location, then select Select Folder.

It’s best to change the default download location when you set up a new Windows 10 computer, reset your computer, or have only a few files in your original Downloads folder. It may take some time for the files to move from the old path to the new path.

If you want to change the default location for various filetypes in Windows 10, follow these steps:

Open Settings. Either go to the Start Menu and select Settings, or press Windows key+I.

Select System.

On the left side, select Storage.

Under More storage settings, select Change where new content is saved.

In the Change where new content is saved window, choose the default location of various files such as new apps, new documents, new music, and others.

Select the drop-down arrow next to an item you want to change, then choose the appropriate drive.

How to change the download location on a Windows 10 computer, and choose a new folder for your downloads

We download items onto our computers all the time — pictures, programs, documents, and more — and these downloads all automatically go to the same place.

This is usually pretty convenient, as it keeps track of everything you download onto your computer, even if you want to save a particular item somewhere else after you download it.

However, if you’d like all of your files to download to a different location on your computer, there is a way to do it.

Here’s how to change your download location on a Windows 10 PC.

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How to change the download location on a Windows 10 computer

1. Open the File Explorer. If you don’t have the image of a file folder pinned to your taskbar, simply type «File Explorer» into the search bar in the bottom left corner of your screen and it will pop up.

2. If you want to create a new folder to use as your download location, do this now with the «New Folder» button under the Home tab at the top of the screen. If you’d like your files to download to an existing location, you can skip this step.

3. In the This PC or Quick Access menus, right-click the Downloads folder, then click Properties at the bottom of the pop-up menu.

4. In the new window, click on the Location tab. Then click «Move…»

5. Select the folder you want to make the download location on your computer.

6. Click «OK.» This will cause all of the files currently in your Downloads folder to move to the new folder. When they are done loading, close the Properties window. New files that you download should automatically go to the new folder.

How To Change Downloads Folder Location In Windows 7

All of us love downloading files from the internet. But by default the downloads folder in Windows 7 resides at “C:UsersUser-nameDownloads”. Since C drive is dedicated to Windows so we must not keep our files in this drive. Also in most cases this drive is of less size. So to permanently move this folder to some other location or other drive we can change the location easily and all the old files will get moved to the new location and the new downloads will automatically be downloaded at the new location.

Steps To Change Downloads Folder Location In Windows 7 :

1. Open Computer and in the left pane select Downloads under the favorite menu.

2. Right click in the empty area and select properties.

3. Select the Location tab and enter the location where you want to store your download files. You can also browse the location by pressing the Move button.

4. It will ask for moving the old files , if you want to move all the old files to the new location then select yes else select no.

How to change default Downloads folder location in new Microsoft Edge

Compared to the existing Edge Legacy, many features are easy to customize on the new Edge Chromium browser – and it follows the same standards as other browsers. One such customization is the setting up of the default Downloads folder location to download the files using the browser. Even though a minor feature, it helps if you download on a daily basis. In this guide, we will be checking out how to change the default download location for the new Microsoft Edge.

Change default Download location in Edge browser

You can change the Downloads folder vis Edge Settings as follows:

1. Open Edge browser > Click the menu button (three horizontal dots)
2. In the drop-down menu which appears, click on the Settings menu item
3. It will open the Settings section of the Edge Browser
4. Click on the Downloads section in the left panel
5. Here, you have two options:

• • Location: It displays the current location of the download folder. There is a Change button to set the default download folder.
  • Ask where to save each file before downloading: You can Toggle On or Off.

Alternatively, you can directly open the Downloads settings using a shortcut. Type the below-mentioned command in the address bar of the Microsoft Edge browser, and hit the Enter key.

Now, if you want to choose the download location every time, toggle on the second option. But if you’re going to change the default location, you can click the Change button for the first option.

This action will open a mini Explorer pop up. Navigate around and select the default location to download all the files.

Click OK, and you have set a new default location for all future downloads.

There are however other ways too, to change the download location.

Using the Downloads folder Properties

1] Open the File Explorer on your Windows 10 PC. Right-click on the Downloads in the left pane of your File Explorer, and select Properties. Go to the Location tab and enter the new path for your desired download folder.

You can also move already downloaded files to the folder from here. Enter a new folder name and click on Yes to move all the files from one location to other.

Using Registry

If you like to tinker with the Windows Registry, Run regedit and navigate to the following registry key:

Find the key with the string %USERPROFILE%\Downloads. Double click on the string to open a small pop-up window where you can edit the string and change the default download location.

Change the Value Data and add the path of download folder according to your preferences.

How To Change The Default Downloads Folder Path In Windows

Mar 23, 2017
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Every Windows installation comes with a few default libraries and folders. The system adds these for each individual user. It also adds a few default locations for saving files. The Screenshots folder in Windows 10 is a good example of such a folder. You can take screenshots in Windows 10 via the Win+PrntScrn key and they save to the Screenshots folder. Another auto-folder in Windows is the Downloads folder. This is where apps download files to by default. You can select a different location for saving files but it doesn’t change the default downloads folder path in Windows. Here’s how you can do that.

Change The Default Downloads Folder Path

Open File Explorer and right-click the Downloads folder under This PC in the navigation column. Select Properties from the context menu.

Go to the location tab in the Properties window. Click the ‘Move’ button and select a different folder to use as the default downloads folder. Click ‘Apply’.

Keep Or Move Files

When you click ‘Apply’, Windows will ask you if you want to move all files in the current Downloads folder to the new one. If you click ‘Yes’, all files in the default downloads folder will be moved to the new location. If you click ‘No’, the files will not be moved and only the location of the downloads folder will be changed. Needless to say, if you choose to move the files as well, it will take a little longer.

All apps that save files to the default Downloads folder will start to save files to the new location. If you’ve told an app to save files to a different location e.g., the Desktop, they will continue to save files to the desktop. In order to get those apps to save to the new downloads folder, you have to select it again from the Save As window. If the app has dedicated settings for selecting a download location, use that to select the default location.

Restore Default Location

You can undo the change easily enough. Open File Explorer and right-click Downloads in the navigation bar. Select Properties from the context menu and go to the Location tab. Under the location field is a ‘Restore Default’ button. Click it and Windows will return the downloads folder to the default location. It will again ask if you want to move files or not.

The downloads folder for any and all users on Windows resides in the C drive. If you don’t regularly purge the Downloads folder of files you do not need, it can grow to a substantial size. It can get to a point where your Windows drive starts to run short on space. The obvious solution is to clean your Downloads folder regularly. If you can’t do that regularly enough, or you have a small Window drive, move the Downloads folder to a drive with more space.