Open PART File

Partial Browser Files

In order to download a file from the internet you need an application which supports a certain internet file download protocol. Typical applications which are used for this purpose are internet browsers and download managers. These applications have built-in support for many download protocols which websites on the internet use.

Certain files like software or operating system installation, disk image files, movies can take significant space on disk. Typically, files which are downloaded or are in process of being downloaded are stored on the hard drive so they could be used by other applications. Since it takes quite a while to download a large file, browser needs a space on a hard drive to store currently downloaded chunk of the file. When browser starts the download, the file is allocated with a size equal to the size of the file you are about to download (if this size is not known at the time of the download then file is allocated as empty and its size grows as download proceeds). After that once new chunk of information is downloaded from the internet the browser writes it to this partial download file. Once the download process is complete this file is renamed to match the name of the file you are downloading.

Each browser uses different file extension for partial download files. Below are most common partial download file extensions:

• CRDOWNLOAD - Chrome partial download file
• PART - Firefox partial download file
• PARTIAL - Internet explorer partial download file

That’s why if you see CRDOWNLOAD, PART or PARTIAL file on your hard drive it means that this file is either being downloaded or failed to download. To check specific status of the file you will need to open a browser corresponding to a file extension (as per list above) and check its download status.

If file is not available in a corresponding browser you can try to find a place from where the download originated.