How to Stop Chrome from Opening PDFs in the Browser

Chrome can either open PDF links in its built-in viewer or download them to your computer. To stop PDFs from opening in a browser tab, change the PDF documents setting—do not use the obsolete chrome://plugins page shown in older instructions.

Make Chrome download PDFs instead of opening them

1. Open Google Chrome on your computer.
2. Enter chrome://settings/content/pdfDocuments in the address bar and press Enter.
3. Select Download PDFs.

You can reach the same option through More > Settings > Privacy and security > Site settings > Additional content settings > PDF documents. The wording may vary slightly between Chrome versions.

The next time you select a normal PDF link, Chrome should download the file. Open it from the Downloads list or your Downloads folder with the PDF application configured on your operating system.

How to restore Chrome's built-in PDF viewer

Return to chrome://settings/content/pdfDocuments and choose Open PDFs in Chrome. Chrome will again display supported PDF links in a tab.

If PDFs still open or download unexpectedly

• Check the website's behavior. A site can send a PDF as an attachment and force a download regardless of your viewer preference.
• Check your PDF application. Adobe Acrobat Reader and similar apps may include a preference to open downloaded browser PDFs automatically.
• Check managed-browser policies. On a work or school computer, an administrator can control PDF handling. Open chrome://policy to see whether policies are applied, but contact the administrator before changing managed settings.
• Test without extensions. A download manager or PDF extension can override Chrome's normal behavior. Temporarily disable relevant extensions and try the link again.
• Update and restart Chrome. If the setting is present but has no effect, install pending updates and restart the browser. Clearing the Chrome cache may help with a problematic site, although it does not normally change the PDF preference.

Opening downloaded PDFs in another app

The Chrome setting controls whether a web PDF is previewed or downloaded; it does not choose the desktop app that opens the downloaded file. Set your preferred PDF reader as the operating system's default application for .pdf files. If a particular file will not open, use these PDF opening and troubleshooting steps.

Note: The old chrome://plugins method no longer applies to current Chrome releases because the browser no longer exposes the built-in viewer as a plugin on that page.