How to stop Chrome from automatically opening PDF files
Jul 21, 2025 am 12:09 AMTo get Chrome to download directly instead of opening when clicking on the PDF link, 1. Enter chrome://settings/content/pdfDocuments and check "Download PDF files instead of automatically opening them in Chrome"; 2. Check whether there are plug-ins such as Lightpdf or Smallpdf interfering behavior, and try to disable testing; 3. Use the developer tools to copy the link and paste the new tag to trigger the download. The above methods can be selected according to the situation.
Chrome automatically opens PDF files and sometimes it can interfere with your browsing experience, especially when you prefer to download files directly rather than view them in your browser. The good news is that this setting can be changed and it is not difficult to operate.

Modify Chrome's PDF default behavior
Chrome itself has a built-in PDF viewer, which will open PDF files in the browser by default. But you can change it to automatically download it after clicking on the link instead of opening it directly. The method is as follows:
- Open Chrome browser, enter:
chrome://settings/content/pdfDocuments
- On this page you will see an option: " Download PDF files instead of automatically opening them in Chrome "
- Check this option, then click any PDF link and download it directly instead of opening it in the browser.
This setting is suitable for PDF files on most websites, but some web pages may be forced to be viewed online, so you need to start from another perspective.

Check browser extensions or plug-ins
Sometimes, PDFs may be automatically opened not because of the browser default settings, but because some plugins affect behavior. For example, ad blocking tools, document enhancement plug-ins, etc., they sometimes "take over" the way PDFs are opened.
You can disable plug-in testing one by one in Chrome's extension management page ( chrome://extensions/
) to see if it is caused by a certain extension. Especially those plug-ins related to document processing, such as "Lightpdf", "Smallpdf", etc., are worth checking it before verifying the effect.

Use developer tools to bypass automatic opening
If you just occasionally encounter a specific web page that always forces the PDF to be opened online, and you do not want to modify the global settings, you can temporarily intervene with the developer tools.
- Right-click on the PDF download link, select "Check" or press F12 to open the developer tools
- Switch to the "Network" tab
- Click on the link again and you should be able to see the PDF file in the network request list
- Right-click the request and select "Copy link address"
- Paste the copied link to a new tab and open it, which usually triggers download instead of preview
This method is suitable for temporary emergency response and does not require changes to the settings, but requires a little hands-on ability.
Basically these are the methods. Changing the settings is the most direct, but if you don’t want to move the global settings, you can also try disabling the plug-in or using developer tools to temporarily solve it.
The above is the detailed content of How to stop Chrome from automatically opening PDF files. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

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To let Chrome download directly instead of opening it when clicking on the PDF link, 1. Enter chrome://settings/content/pdfDocuments to check "DownloadPDFfilesinsteadofautomatically opening theminChrome"; 2. Check whether there are plug-ins such as Lightpdf or Smallpdf interfering behavior, you can try to disable the test; 3. You can use the developer tools to copy the link and paste the new tag to trigger the download. The above methods can be selected according to the situation.

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