Chrome's upcoming download UI redesign prepares drag-and-drop support

It's perfect for moving those memes-in-progress right into Photoshop

We've known for a few months that Google is working on a new download UI for Chrome. This menu is placed next to the URL bar and displays large progress bars, time remaining, and other information without shoving it into the bottom of your browser window. With the latest Canary update, Chrome's revamped downloads UI is getting another change: drag-and-drop files.

As spotted by u/Leopeva64-2 on Reddit, Google's latest Canary update allows you to drag and drop download files out of the panel. This move opens up plenty of options, including the ability to move files directly to your desktop from the downloads panel. It's easy to see how this could improve productivity, especially for creatives who are constantly moving files between files. Downloading images to your PC and dragging them directly to your desktop or into Photoshop could speed up your daily workflow, especially if you're utilizing multiple monitors.

via u/Leopeva64-2 on Reddit

Trying it out for myself, I was able to perform both actions, quickly opening a downloaded photo in Photoshop and copying the file to my desktop. It's a feature currently supported by the standard bottom bar use, and it's great to see it won't get lost in the eventual transition to a menu-based downloads UI.

If you want to try it out for yourself, you'll need the latest version of Chrome Canary. That new downloads menu is still hidden behind a flag, but you can activate it using the "download-bubble" flag. That experiment is also available in the current stable version of Chrome, though it doesn't yet support drag-and-drop files.