Now if you're new to Mac you may not fully understand how the Downloads Folder works.
The Downloads Folder is a special folder on your Mac that's used as the default location
for all sorts of downloads from all sorts of different apps.
Typically when you download something from Safari it may end up in the Downloads Folder.
Now let's look at this image here on NASA's website and let's say we want to download
it.
Now sometimes a website will have a download button.
You click it and it automatically starts to download.
You don't get the choice of where it goes.
In this case there is no automatic download button but if I Control click on the image
you can see that one of the options I've got is Download Linked File As.
This allows me to select a location.
So I'm bypassing the Downloads Folder.
But if I select Download Linked File it's not going to ask.
It's just going to do it.
When it does it you'll see the downloads button in the Toolbar show me the progress of what's
going on.
That's in the upper right hand corner.
So it's right up here and you see the download happening.
You also see the item leap from the page into the Downloads Folder which is in the Dock
here and it's going to change to show its content.
So in this case its got the item in there.
I can click on it and depending upon how you've got your Dock setup it may show you the items
in there.
In this case I've got that one image.
I can click here to open in Finder to get to the Downloads Folder.
In Safari I can also click this button here and it will show me a list of recent downloads.
It will allow me to clear these downloads here and that does not change what's in the
Downloads Folder.
That's just the list of downloads in Safari.
So that button was representing what was local to Safari but the Downloads Folder is a normal
folder in the Finder.
So if I were to click here and open in the Finder I would see my Downloads Folder has
got that one image I've downloaded.
Now I can move this somewhere else and I probably should.
If you want to keep something it's best to move it out of the Downloads Folder.
A big problem a lot of people have is they keep stuff in the Downloads Folder.
Maybe they take a look at the image and they say that's nice and they move on.
Then a few months later they find they've got 400 items in the Downloads Folder.
So you want to kind of maintain your Downloads Folder.
Get rid of things you don't need anymore.
Move things out of there to a folder that you've created in your Documents folder or
somewhere if you want to keep them.
Try to keep things pretty clean.
You can also get to the Downloads Folder in the Finder by creating a new Finder window.
Then you may find it in the left sidebar under Favorites or you can always say Go and then
it's listed here Downloads and there's even Option Command L to get there.
Or you can look in your Home folder and then it's one of the main folders in your Home
folder as well as Music, Documents, Pictures, etc.
Any way you get to it a handy way to look at the items there is the List View here.
The List View will show you all these headings.
You can alter these by going to View, Show View Options and add Date Last Opened, Date
Added.
Now you'll see these here as options where you can Sort.
You can see which items are the most recent ones that you've used, which recent ones you've
added to your Mac.
That kind of thing.
You can also sort by size.
Just click any of these headings here to sort by those.
So it will help you manage and keep things pretty clean in there.
It's useful to try to go those every once in a while.
Keep your Downloads Folder clean.
A lot of times when people run out of hard drive space maybe they've gone, it could be
years, with downloading things and the Downloads Folder is just stuffed with lots of large
files that they don't need anymore.
I try to make it the rule that if I'm going to use it I move out of the Downloads Folder
and if not I delete it immediately and keep my Downloads Folder clean.