Google Chrome for Android will soon support Custom Download Folders

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The Google Chrome browser is based on the open source Chromium browser project, and thanks to its open source nature, it’s possible to follow any development on the browser right as it happens. We recently covered that Google Chrome for Android would be adding HDR video playback support after discovering a new commit in the Chromium gerrit. Today, we discovered that Google Chrome for Android is preparing to add a new feature: changing the default download folder.

Currently, all downloads from Google Chrome are stored in the /Downloads folder in /data/media/user. The folder can get quite cluttered since this folder is the shared default download folder for most applications. If your device is running low on storage or never had a lot of storage space available, then you may have wanted to change Chrome’s download folder to your device’s SD card (if you have one).

Such a basic feature has existed on the desktop version of Google Chrome, but it’s finally making its way over to the Android version. We discovered a commit in the Chromium gerrit bringing this feature. It was recently merged, and the flag to enable the feature can be found in the latest nightly build of Chromium. You can directly access the flag by copying and pasting this line into Chrome’s address bar:

chrome://flags#enable-downloads-location-change

The flag says “enable changing default downloads storage location on Android.” I enabled it on my device but was unable to find where the default download folder could be changed in Chrome’s settings. Looking back at the commit, it appears that the feature is still a work in progress as the commit simply adds a flag but it doesn’t actually implement the logic for changing the download directory. The commit that adds the relevant preference in settings has yet to be merged, so it may be a few days until this feature is usable on Chrome for Android builds, and it’ll take even longer for it to make its way to the stable or beta branches of Chrome.