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Some browsers has the option to automatically save downloaded files to a folder, without prompting the user where to save the file. This has posed a problem for us where the user automatically saves the file in "Downloads" instead of selecting a proper location.

Is there any HTML-attribute, HTTP-header or JavaScript solution to instruct browsers to prompt for save location for downloaded files even though they are configured otherwise?

Note: I am well aware that this is probably not possible, but wanted to see if someone hopefully can prove me wrong.

Related issues:

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Robin Andersson
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  • I'd be interested in what "a proper location" is in your use case… – deceze Apr 27 '17 at 06:19
  • @deceze In our use case it is on the USB-stick that the user has connected to their computer. The case in brief is to transfer the data offline from one device to another, and a common mistake the user does is that they think they are done when the download the file even though it automatically saves to default location. – Robin Andersson Apr 27 '17 at 06:25
  • @deceze Worth mentioning is that it is quite an odd case and I would not recommend forcing the user (if it was possible) to choose location normally. – Robin Andersson Apr 27 '17 at 06:26
  • @deceze cloudconvert is an example of a website that does that (if you need an example you can add it in the question), so it ***is*** possible, but i've been searching for a long time on the internet and i still don't know how to do it – Konstei Aug 18 '23 at 11:02
  • @Konstei I've tried Cloudconvert and I don't see where it lets me choose a download location, so I have no idea what you mean… – deceze Aug 18 '23 at 11:16
  • @deceze i just tried it, it seems that if you go to cloudconvert and try to convert something it just converts and you download it from the download button, but i tried converting a file just before writing the comment and i got a preview and download popup with another download button that let me choose where to save it (for reproduction i searched for "mp4 to mp3" -> cloud convert -> selected a file and convert -> preview popup when finished with the special download/save button) – Konstei Aug 18 '23 at 11:25
  • @deceze i found out you can toggle the browser setting to always get prompted before any file download, but i had that off. The reason i got prompted might have been because i was not logged into any google chrome account, so it just prompted; idk how it works but everybody says that you (as the dev) cannot force that prompt, so that was probably it – Konstei Aug 18 '23 at 11:49

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No. It's a browser preference. If the user prefers not to be bothered by their browser for download locations, then that's their prerogative. They'll deal with the file location after it has been downloaded. A server cannot influence that behaviour.

deceze
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