Google offers a lot of features to help you focus andimprove productivity on Chromebrowser, and recent versions have made efforts to streamline things a bit. One such important change is thedownloads counter shiftingfrom the bottom bar to a drop-down menu next to the address bar, much like on Microsoft Edge. As a part of its grand 2023 redesign, Google Chrome is now testing a toggle that lets you turn off pop-ups for completed downloads.
On current versions of Chrome, active downloads are usually visible in the upper right corner under the Downloads icon next to the address bar. When a file finishes downloading, Chrome alerts you with a floating pop-up under the Downloads icon. Popular Chrome feature researcherLeopeva64recently spotted Google testing a new toggle in the Settings menu of Chrome Canary (v114) to control this behavior.
Chrome download pop-up behavior when toggle is switched on vs switched off
Located under theoverflow menu>Settings>Downloads, you need to keep this toggle on to retain the current default behavior. Switching turns off the pop-ups, leaving a colored Downloads icon as the only indicator of successful completion. The change may not be ideal if you want to get a heads up the moment a file is downloaded, but it can also help avoid distracting notifications when you want to focus and get work done in the browser. That’s especially true for small files like images, which would keep interrupting your workflow with every finished download.
We have the toggle on at least one of our computers running Chrome Canary, and it works as advertised. However, Leopeva64 draws attention to the peculiarity of this option’s existence in the first place. Google seldom allows end users to control whether they want an available feature visible or not, and this is one of the rare exceptions. The toggle could be an addition to the Settings menu for Canary testing, or it could be there for good. Only time will tell. For all we care, more user control over an application’s behavior is always welcome.
