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How to Download Directly to Google Drive on Chromebook

by Ravi Teja KNTS
chromebook with airpods

Chromebooks are wonderful but all of them have one big issue – limited storage. One way to fix this problem is by inserting an external SD card. However, if you are like me, who does not prefer to use an SD card (as it sticks out of the slot), you can also set the default download directory to Google Drive and also make it available for offline use. Here’s how.

Download Directly to Google Drive on Chromebook.

To download directly to Google Drive, open your Chrome Browser and click on the three-dot menu in the top right corner. And then click on the “Settings” from the options appeared.

Opening settings Google Chrome

Now press on the “Advanced” option in the left sidebar and from the dropdown, click on the “Download” option. Alternatively, you can just open this link to open download options directly on Chrome.

Navigating to downloads option on Google Chrome

In the downloads section, you can either change the default location for Downloads to a particular folder or you can have Chrome ask you where to save each file before downloading.

In our case, we want to change the download directory to Google Drive on Chromebook, click on the “Change” button, next to the Location option.

Changing Downloads Location

You can see Chrome OS’s File Manager window pops up. Just click on “Google Drive” in the left sidebar of the file manager and navigate to the exact location where you want to download and click “Open” at the bottom right of the window.  And that’s it you have successfully changed the download location to Google Drive.

Selecting the downloads location on Google Chrome on Chromebook

On the flip side, you can actually access a few files stored in Drive even when you are offline. But they are not permanent and can be lost anytime. To make them permanently available offline, just open the Files app > Google drive and right-click on the file you want to make it offline and select the “Available Offline” option. If the file is available offline, you can see a tick mark beside it saying it is already available offline.

Making files available offline on Google Drive of Chroembook

Once the file is available offline, you can check it in the offline section of Google Drive.

Wrapping up

Changing download location also changes the default location of the entire Chromebook. So even screenshots will be saved to Google Drive. This makes using multiple devices much easy as you have single storage for all your devices. Anyhow, though Chromebooks support services like Dropbox, you cannot set them as default options.

Also read:- Best PWA Apps You Need to Install on Your Chromebook

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