Microsoft Edge is getting a major update to downloading files

By Sean Endicott
last updated

Edge's new downloads menu won't take up so much space on your screen.

Edge Dev Hero 2020 Newfeature
Edge Dev Hero 2020 Newfeature (Image credit: Daniel Rubino / Windows Central)

What you need to know

  • Microsoft Edge has a new downloads menu rolling out.
  • The new menu makes it easy to keep track of downloads without giving up space on your screen.
  • The menu also lets you pause, restart, and cancel downloads.
  • The menu is currently on the Dev and Canary Channels.

Microsoft introduced a new downloads menu for its Edge browser today. The menu makes it easy to keep track of downloads without having to give up much space on your screen. The flyout menu also lets you pause, restart, and cancel downloads. The feature is currently in the Dev and Canary Channels.

Microsoft's William Devereux outlines the new downloads menu in a Tech Community post (opens in new tab).

The new downloads menu pops out from an icon on the address bar of Edge. All of your active downloads are in one place and in a layout that looks more natural than spanning across a tray at the bottom of the browser. You can click on the menu's icon to expand it and then easily hide it away with another click.

When the menu is minimized, you can still keep track of your downloads with a progress ring that surrounds the downloads button.

Source: Microsoft (Image credit: Source: Microsoft)

Within the downloads menu, you can right-click or hover over any file to pause, restart, or cancel a download. The menu also has a "See more" option to view and manage past downloads.

If you'd like, you can also pin the downloads menu open to keep track of downloads as they progress.

Overall, the new menu seems like a vast improvement over the old way that Edge handled downloads.

Download it now

 (opens in new tab)
Microsoft Edge

A worthy browser.

The new Microsoft Edge runs on Chromium, supports popular extensions, and regularly gets new features from Microsoft. The Canary version of Edge gets new features to test and try out regularly as well.

Sean Endicott
Sean Endicott
News Writer and apps editor

Sean Endicott brings nearly a decade of experience covering Microsoft and Windows news to Windows Central. He joined our team in 2017 as an app reviewer and now heads up our day-to-day news coverage. If you have a news tip or an app to review, hit him up at sean.endicott@futurenet.com (opens in new tab).

9 Comments
  • Not got that here
  • I wonder how that will work with the current Open/Save as buttons we get when set to "Ask me what to do..." While I agree that the current UI could be improved, I love the feature set once they added the Open directly option (most files I download, I just need to open, don't care about saving them anyplace and don't want to have to go looking for them to clean them up later).
  • I thought it was just Edge. I guess this was already renamed Microsoft Edge.
  • It was microsoft edge from the beginning.
  • Only in Canary and Dev.
  • I guess not...
  • I am on Edge Dev. I had this feature till yesterday (v89). With today's update to v90 it's gone.
  • I really like this idea!
  • This is a step in the right direction. I'm hoping they're still working on cleaning up the overall menu system, which right now is kind of a mess. You have to think twice before you click. It really needs some work. The Android version isn't much better.