Safari is Apple’s own internet browser and is the default browser app on all iMacs and MacBooks. If you’re on the web and want to download a file, it’s easy enough to do so using Safari.
You can download all manner of files – images, videos, documents and more, but sometimes given the open file system of a Mac it can be hard to keep track of where those files download to.
Here we’ll show you how to download files using Safari on a Mac, how to find them once they have downloaded, and how to change the location they download to should you wish to.
How to find the Downloads folder on a Mac
The first thing to know is that out of the box, all Macs will download files from Safari to the same location. This is, unsurprisingly, called the Downloads folder.
To find the Downloads folder, click on the Finder in the Dock and then select Downloads from the list of folders in the Finder.
How to download files using Safari on a Mac
Here you can see on the Apple website a link to download images of the AirPods Pro. In this instance you can left click and the files will begin to download. This is because it is a direct download link.
For other files such as static images, right click the file and click Save Image As, where you can select where to save the file. As you can see below in newer versions of macOS, the menu gives you the option to Save Image to “Downloads”, the folder which is the default location for all file downloads on Safari on all Macs.
Once you’ve started the download, a status bar appears marked by a downward arrow icon on the top right of the Safari window. Once the files have downloaded, you can access them by clicking on the downward arrow icon, or by opening Finder and locating the Downloads folder as described higher up this page.
From here you can view, edit or delete the files you’ve downloaded from Safari.
How to change where files from Safari download to
While we’d recommend keeping the Downloads folder as the default place for your Safari downloads to go to, you can change the default download location if you need to.
To do this, open Safari, click on Safari in the top toolbar and then click preferences, then click General. On this menu click the drop down box next to File download location, and then select a new destination folder for Safari downloads to be saved in.
You can change this default location at any time, or come back to this menu if you can’t remember what you set it to in the first place.
Author: Henry Burrell, Phones Editor
Henry is Tech Advisor’s Phones Editor, ensuring he and the team covers and reviews every smartphone worth knowing about for readers and viewers all over the world. He spends a lot of time moving between different handsets and shouting at WhatsApp to support multiple devices at once.