How to manage and remove download items in Safari for Mac

When you download items in Safari, they are all easily accessible from the toolbar. You can see them, pause and resume them, and clear them away.

Here’s how to manage and remove download items in Safari for Mac.

View your downloads

You can see your downloads in two different ways in Safari.

First, you can click View > Show Downloads in the menu bar.

Note: The Show Downloads option will be clickable only if you have some recent downloads.

Second, you can click the Show Downloads button in the Safari toolbar.

Pause and resume downloads

Some files you download will take very little time, but large files can take a few minutes. So, if you decide that you don’t want to download a file after all, you may have time to pause or stop it:

1. Click the Show Downloads button on the toolbar.
2. Right-click on the download.
3. Select Stop from the menu.

If you want to stop the download completely, you can also click the X next to the progress bar for the download.

If you want to resume downloading the file, right-click again and select Resume.

Remove downloads manually

You can manually remove downloads from the list one at a time or all at once. For all downloads, click the Show Downloads button in the toolbar and click Clear.

For individual removals:

1. Click the Show Downloads button on the toolbar.
2. Right-click on the download.
3. Select Remove from List from the menu.

Remove downloads automatically

You can also have Safari clear your downloads for you automatically:

1. Open Safari, click Safari in the top menu bar and select Settings or Preferences.
2. On the General tab, click the Remove download list items drop-down box and choose from After one day, When Safari quits, or Upon successful download.

Change the download location

By default, your downloaded items will go into the Downloads folder. But you can change this if you like:

1. Open Safari, click Safari in the menu bar and select Preferences.
2. On the General tab, click the File download location drop-down box and choose the spot you want.

Hopefully, this tutorial helps answer any questions you have about managing your downloads. But if you still have more questions, feel free to leave a comment below.

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