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ChromeOS 73.0.3680.0 Rolling out to the Dev Channel – Backup your Downloads Folder before Rebooting

K

Just a FYI, ChromeOS 73.0.3680.0 is currently rolling out to the Dev Channel and carries a nasty surprise. It appears to delete anything stored in your Downloads Folder without warning after installing it. Please backup your Downloads folder to Google Drive or an external flash drive prior to rebooting. This file deletion bug does not seem to impact anything outside of the Downloads folder including Crostini or Android files. It also does not impact any other files stored in folders outside of your Downloads directory.

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Please note that this blog post has been archived and may contain information that is outdated, defunct, or covers topics that are no longer of interest. It is being kept available solely for reference purposes, in case others might find portions of it useful.

For more recent and up-to-date tutorials, I recommend visiting KMyers.me or other websites that specialize in the topic you are interested in. It is always advisable to seek the most current information to ensure accuracy and relevance.

Update : Method to recover your Downloads Files

Reddit UserGabrielMichaelsonhas pointed out thatChromeOS 73.0.3680.0 seems to enable the “Enable MyFiles as Volume” flag in chrome://flags. This means that you can recover your downloads directory by doing the following

  1. Navigate tochrome://flags/#enable-myfiles-volume and disable the flag
  2. Restart
  3. Open your Downloads and copy everything to an external drive or Google Drive
  4. Navigate tochrome://flags/#enable-myfiles-volume and enable the flag
  5. Restart
  6. Copy everything back (Note, you can now use folders outside of your Downloads Directory)