How to Change the Safari Download Location on Mac OS

How to Change the Safari Download Location on Mac OS

By default, the Safari web browser for Mac will download any files to of the active user account. Most Mac users will likely be satisfied with that, but some may wish to change the file download directory in Safari for Mac OS to another directory. Likewise, if you have changed the Safari download destination, you may wish to revert back to the default download folder for Safari on the Mac. This tutorial will show you how to change the Safari downloads location in Mac OS. You can change it to any directory or folder you have access to, or you can revert back to the default Safari downloads destination of the user Downloads directory. Making this adjustment will change where all downloaded files from the Safari web browser go to on the Mac. It will not impact other applications and where they download files. Now all future downloaded files or items from Safari will go to the folder or directory you selected. For example, if you selected the Desktop, then all Safari downloaded files will appear on the desktop of the Mac. Changing the download destination for Safari only applies to downloads and files going forward, any files downloads before this change was made would appear in the location set prior to any adjustment. If you arent sure where a particular file downloaded from Safari is located, you can search on the Mac with Spotlight for the file name, click the magnifying glass button in the , or manually investigate the user Downloads folder or whatever you had/have selected as the Safari download location. If you had previously customized the location of the Download directory away from the default (~/Downloads) and to another directory, you can change it back as follows: Thats it, now the Safari downloaded file destination directory will be reset to default ~/Downloads folder on the Mac. Most users are better off keeping all downloads in for consistency sake, because it makes keeping track of downloaded files particularly easy if all apps are downloading all files into the same location. By default, most Mac apps that are able to download files will use the user Downloads folder as the destination for those files, including Safari, Chrome, Firefox, most SFTP apps, and even file transfer features like by default on MacOS. Of course this applies to Safari, which also happens to be the , but if you use a different web browser then changing the default download location would be different. You can , for example. And in case you were wondering, yes this guide applies to both regular Safari, Safari Beta, as well as the builds. The download settings will be similar but slightly different if you happen to be but since that Windows-specific software build is no longer actively developed its usage is debatably more limited. Do you have any tips, tricks, suggestions, or thoughts about adjusting where Safari downloads files to on the Mac? Share your experiences or opinions in the comments below!