how to download very large files in chrome
On Windows 7 running Chrome browser, downloading a 3.2TB file to a USB drive say F:\big-files\ with 3.5TB free fails because "Disk Full". It appears that Chrome uses a temporary folder for downloads which would be on C:\somewhere (%appdata%\whatever) which has nowhere near enough space.
Research suggests adding --disk-cache-dir="F:\big-cache" to the program shortcut.
My question is (without downloading for days to find out): Will Chrome successfully move the file from F:\big-cache\ to F:\big-files\ when the file occupies 90% of the space available on the drive?
I think it will work because the move just needs to change the file pointer and not physically move the file, but if that's wrong, how to successfully download the file?
Should I just set my cache to F:\big-files so the cache is the destination and be done with it, or is that also doomed for some reason?
UpdateUnder F:\big-files\ there is a new directory structure Default\ which contains Default\Cache and "Default\Code Cache". I assume it was created by Chrome. If so why has the download failed? Surely I don't need double the space to download any given file?
102 Answers
The proposed solution of adding --disk-cache-dir=D:\location won't work. I've tested it with a 1GB file, the folder would not grow past 6MB in size. It seems chrome uses another folder as temporary download directory.
Others stated that chrome would download the file to its final directory if this is on a different drive, I could not reproduce that behavior as seen in the screenshot
Fortunately there are other solutions which work out of the box:
Using a download manager
Download manager are specifically made for downloading many and large files. A download manager like JDownloader has various advantages in comparison to downloading via a browser:
- stopping and resuming the download without loosing data
- limiting the download bandwidth
- downloads to the specified location instead of a temporary folder
And many more which are not critical to your usecase.
Use Firefox
Firefox will download the file directly to the specified location as a <originalfile>.<extension>.part file and rename it to <originalfile>.<extension> after completion.
This simple solution worked for me.
- Append
disk-cache-dir="F:\destination"to the target field of the Chrome shortcut - Start Chrome
- Under Chrome > Settings > Advanced > Downloads enable "Ask where to save each file before downloading"
- Begin the download of
<some-enormous-file> - When prompted for the file destination select
F:\destination - In case you don't believe it's working, check progress on the Chrome Downloads tab
Ctrl-Jand/or refresh Windows Explorer and watch asF:\destination\Unconfirmed <numbers>.crdownloadincrements in size. Watch with pleasure as the download size in either view exceeds the disk space on C:\ and continues - Wait longer.
More permanently the download location can be set to F:\destination and the location prompt turned off . I did not do this because I was downloading two files and F:\ is removable in my case.
