At the end of 2021, the Chrome development team added a download button to the toolbar at the top of the browser, and then gradually increased its information and usefulness. As Google delivers the new experience to more users, we’ve found that the download bar at the bottom of the window will be gradually deprecated until it is completely removed.
Reddit user u/Leopeva64-2 first pointed out that the improved download icon (and download bubble) has appeared on the Chrome toolbar in the Canary branch.
Similar to the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome’s new download button presents information on ongoing and recently completed downloads on the toolbar.
Chrome’s download button changes color and size each time a user downloads a new file. During a download event, the download icon shrinks appropriately and changes from gray to blue.
While future iterations are unclear, the download bubble should have the same functional options as the bottom bar, including opening, showing in a folder, and more.
The feature submission page reads:
- Added download bubble structure
- Added DownloadBubbleUIController to create main view from recent downloads and draw between header and footer via DownloadDialogView.
- Added DownloadRowView and DownloadRowListView placeholders, which will be added in subsequent updates.