How to Open a CRDOWNLOAD File (It’s an Unfinished Download)

A .crdownload file is a temporary placeholder that Chrome (and Chromium-based browsers like Edge) creates while a file is downloading. It holds the bytes that have arrived so far, and nothing more.

You do not open a .crdownload file. When the download finishes, Chrome automatically renames it to the real file. If it is still named .crdownload, the download did not finish.

That is the full answer for most people. The sections below cover what to do when it gets stuck.

Why your file still has a .crdownload extension

Chrome writes the incoming data to a .crdownload file and keeps it there until the last byte arrives. At that point it renames the file automatically: no action from you is needed or expected.

If the file is still named .crdownload, one of two things happened:

• The download was interrupted before it finished. The connection dropped, you closed the browser, or the server stopped responding.
• The download completed but Chrome failed to rename it. This is rare, but it does happen.

The distinction matters because each case has a different fix.

The download got interrupted: resume or restart it

This is the common case. An incomplete file cannot be opened in any useful way. The data inside is partial and will not work in its target program.

What to do:

1. Open Chrome and go to the Downloads page. Press Ctrl + J, or open the menu and choose Downloads.
2. Find the interrupted download in the list. If Chrome shows a Resume button, click it.
3. If there is no Resume option, click the download link again to start fresh.

If you cannot find the original link, search for the file name you expected. Most files are available to download again from the same source.

The rare case: download finished but the file was not renamed

Occasionally Chrome completes a download and does not rename the file correctly. If you are confident the download ran all the way to 100%, you can try renaming it manually.

First, confirm the file is fully downloaded. If it is the same size as the file you expected, the rename approach is worth trying. If it is obviously smaller, the download did not finish.

To rename the file:

1. Make sure you can see file extensions. If you are not sure how to do this, the guide on showing file extensions in Windows walks through it.
2. Right-click the .crdownload file and choose Rename.
3. Remove the .crdownload part and replace it with the extension the file should have. For example, rename setup.exe.crdownload to setup.exe, or photo.jpg.crdownload to photo.jpg.
4. Try opening the renamed file.

A genuinely partial file will still be broken after renaming. Renaming only removes the Chrome label. It does not repair missing data.

Frequently asked questions

Short answers to common questions about .crdownload files.

Can I open a .crdownload file directly?

No. Nothing is designed to open this format because it is not a format. It is an in-progress copy of another file. Once the download finishes, Chrome replaces it with the real file.

Is a .crdownload file safe to delete?

Yes. Deleting it removes only the partial download. If you want the file, download it again; if you do not, delete the .crdownload and you are done.

What program created the .crdownload file?

Chrome (and other Chromium-based browsers, including Edge) create .crdownload files automatically for every download. You did not install software that made them. Other browsers use different temporary extensions.

Can I convert a .crdownload file to something usable?

Only if the download actually completed. In that case, renaming it (as described above) may work. If the download was cut short, there is no conversion that can fill in the missing data.

My download is stuck at 99%. What do I do?

Try pausing and resuming from the Downloads page (Ctrl + J). If that does not help, cancel the download and start it again. This is similar to what happens with torrent downloads, where an interrupted transfer also leaves you with an unusable partial file until it completes.