If you regularly use web applications that generate reports, you might occasionally click a button that attempts to download several PDF files or Excel spreadsheets at the exact same time. When this happens, Google Chrome often intervenes. It pauses the download process and displays a small pop-up near the address bar asking, “Allow [Website] to download multiple files?” You must manually click “Allow” before the rest of your files will download.
Google implements this security feature to prevent malicious websites from executing “drive-by downloads” that flood your hard drive with hundreds of viruses or spam files from a single click. However, if you are working on a trusted internal company dashboard or a safe cloud storage site where batch downloading is part of your daily workflow, this constant prompt is an unnecessary roadblock. You can completely disable this security check for specific trusted sites, or globally across your entire browser.
Disabling the Prompt Globally
If you want to allow any website on the internet to freely download multiple files simultaneously without ever asking for your permission, you can turn the feature off in Chrome’s main settings.
- Open the Google Chrome web browser.
- Look at the top-right corner of the window and click the three vertical dots (the menu button).
- Select Settings from the dropdown menu.
- In the left-hand navigation sidebar, click on Privacy and security.
- In the main panel, click on Site settings.
- Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and click to expand the section labelled Additional permissions.
- Click on Automatic downloads.
- Under the “Default behavior” section, select the radio button next to Sites can ask to automatically download multiple files and change it to Sites can automatically download multiple files. (Note: Depending on your Chrome version, this may simply be a toggle switch that you need to turn on).
Allowing Specific Trusted Websites
For maximum security, it is highly recommended that you leave the global setting on, but explicitly whitelist the specific websites you trust (like your company dashboard or Google Drive).
- Navigate to the exact website that you want to allow.
- Look at the address bar (where the URL is located) and click the View site information icon (it looks like a small padlock or a settings icon just to the left of the URL).
- Click on Site settings from the menu that appears.
- A new settings tab will open specifically for this website. Scroll down the list of permissions until you find Automatic downloads.
- Click the dropdown menu next to it (which will likely say “Ask (default)”) and change it to Allow.
You can now close that settings tab. The next time you click a batch download button on that specific website, Chrome will instantly download all the files to your hard drive without any interruptions.