Chromebooks are great laptops, but most lack proper storage. If your Chromebook downloads a few large files, you’ve already used up 16GB of that space. An SD card slot or USB port gives you additional storage, but your Chromebook downloads to internal storage by default. Here’s how to change the default download directory.
Oh yes, Chromebooks can be a real problem sometimes! (via Flickr.)
Open Advanced Settings on your Chromebook
The easiest way to access these settings is to type in the Chrome browser chrome://settings. That will take you directly to the settings. If you prefer the mouse, click the hamburger menu in the upper right corner of the browser and select Setting. Scroll down and click Show advanced settings…
Insert your external media
You will need to do this before changing your download settings. Your Chromebook can write to FAT, exFat, and NTFS drives (check here for a complete list). Drives formatted for the Mac HFS+ format are read-only on Chromebooks. If you need to reformat the external drive, open the Files App, right-click on the USB drive and select Device Format. ChromeOS defaults to FAT32 for formatting. If you are unsure about the format, copy the test file from the Downloads folder to the external drive.
Need a backup before formatting? Copy those files to your Dropbox using a Handy Chrome Extension
Set download location
After your Chromebook mounts the USB drive or SD card, scroll down to the Downloads area in Settings and click Change…
That brings you to the File explorer window and lets you choose the download location. Select your external media from the side menu and then click Open. ChromeOS doesn’t give you the option to choose, so this is a bit confusing.
Chromebooks won’t verify if the device is writable from ChromeOS – that’s why you might need to check the external storage first if you’re unsure about the format. For Ask where to save each file before downloading option, I think unchecking that setting is more effective if you are downloading a bunch of files.
You can check the box next to Ask install if you want to download some files to external media and others to internal storage. When you’re done, your settings will say > media > mobile > and then your drive letter.
Heed a few warnings
If you delete external media, ChromeOS will not return to the internal Downloads folder by default. I hope they fix that in a future release, as other operating systems will revert to the standard download folder. Since the location is specified by name, if you rename your external media, ChromeOS won’t recognize the new drive as the download location. Don’t bother making your Dropbox the new Download location. That setting doesn’t work.
Another problem I discovered the hard way is that the Downloads folder is the default location for Chromebook screenshots. If you try to take a screenshot and there is no external drive, the screenshot fails with the message Error! An error occurred. Please try again later. Unable to save screenshot. The Chromebook didn’t tell you why, so it took me too long to find the error.
How do you take a screenshot on your Chromebook?Press ctrl + window switch key (f5) for a current page or ctrl + shift + window switch key (f5) for a partial screenshot.
Remember that if you’re in guest mode, your downloads will be erased from the drive while you’re signed out. Change the Downloads folder as soon as you log in so you don’t forget your files.
Sure, you can just copy files from the Downloads folder to external storage, but this saves you a few steps if you’re downloading large files or torrenting.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
