Chrome not opening items, saveas instead

Looks like the following setting was turned on in Chrome. Go to settings and toggle it off. See attached screenshot.
Capture.JPG

ok that worked for all but word documents.

ok that worked for all but word documents

What happens when you download a Word document? Still "Save as" or is it opening automatically?

If the latter, then you have inadvertently selected to  "Always open files of this type" for a download of a Word document before.

Reversing that in earlier versions of chrome was easy, because there was a button to "Clear your Auto Open options" in the Advanced Settings Downloads section - but recent versions of Chrome have removed that UI functionality because it turned out to be a security concern.

You can override the above behaviour (on some versions of Chrome) when downloading any file that Auto-Opens by holding down your Alt key before clicking the Word document online on an as need basis. Holding down the Alt key should get Chrome to Download instead of Open the document.

I'm unaware of any permanent method to override a previously set automatically open behaviour in current versions of Chrome at this time, apart from a complete reinstall of Chrome so that settings are not carried forward from previous versions. It requires renaming or deleting the current Chrome profile.

I've written an article on one way to achieve this that you can follow if you like.

Resolve Chrome Issues 99% of the time using this method!

Alternatively, you can also try just closing all instances of Google Chrome, and rename the following folders to "Chrome.old" and see if that fixes it. You will need to copy back your favourites and reinstall any extensions you are using, so save those first or make a note.

Rename: C:\Users\YOUR_PROFILE_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Google\Chrome to Chrome.old
Rename: C:\Users\YOUR_PROFILE_NAME\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome to Chrome.old

Re-open Chrome and it will act as though it has just been reinstalled. When you try to download a Word document now, it should default to saving file rather than opening it.

If it doesn't work out, then exit all instances of Chrome again and restore the renamed Chrome.old folders back to Chrome and you'll be back to where you started.

Hope that's helpful.

Regards, Andrew

Incidentally, in the event that you may be using an earlier version of Chrome that is compatible with changing the Auto Open settings, you can follow the steps in the following article to resolve the Word Document opening issue;

https://www.presentermedia.com/blog/2013/10/my-file-automatically-opens-instead-of-saving-with-chrome/

If the option described in the above doesn't exist in your copy of Chrome, please refer back to the instructions in my previous comment.

Regards, Andrew

Other types are doing the traditional download to the left and I can set their auto open fine.  Docx word docs are still doing the save as.  Thanks

Reset Chrome settings to default

You can restore your browser settings in Chrome at any time. You might need to do this if apps or extensions you installed changed your settings without your knowledge. Your saved bookmarks and passwords won't be cleared or changed.

On your computer, open Chrome.

At the top right, click More More and then Settings.

At the bottom, click Advanced.

Windows: Under "Reset and cleanup,” click Reset Settings and then Reset Settings.

Have you tried tor reset Chrome?

tcolonna,

Other types are doing the traditional download to the left and I can set their auto open fine.  Docx word docs are still doing the save as

I've now researched this and that appears to be normal and intended behaviour. The same occurs in my own (up to date) copy of Google Chrome.

If you have set your preferred download folder, it should just mean an additional mouse click on the save button when the download opens in a new tab. I've been unable to find a workaround for this behaviour as it's how Google has seemed to configured the product to behave for some reason.

Hope that's helpful.

Regards, Andrew