Sign up with your email below to instantly access member features, newsletters and exclusive Insider perks By submitting your information, you confirm you are aged 16 or over, have read our Privacy Policy and agree to the Terms & Conditions . Geographical rules apply. Your membership journey starts here. Keep exploring and earning more as a member. Latest in phones News, deals, reviews, guides and more… Latest in computing News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards. Best for power users Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards. Best for power users We list the best free download managers, to make it simple and easy to avoid wasting time on downloads, even multiple at once, without spending a dime. These provide the ability to organize, prioritize, and streamline your downloads, providing stability over using a web browser to download files, especially several at once. You can use these to schedule, file previewing, torrent file support, and support for automatic extraction of compressed file types - all common features - browsers can't match these. We’ve listed our picks for the top download manager here, addressing speeds, their interface, as well as pure ease of sorting and categorizing downloaded files. Also, we've featured the best file managers . The best free download managers of 2026 in full: Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you're buying the best. Find out more about how we test. Best free download manager overall 1. Ninja Download Manager Our expert review: Reasons to avoid A relative newcomer takes the top spot - as Ninja Download Manager provides a simple but effective password manager. It has a smooth and modern interface, with am accelerator to help you download files ten times quicker. How does it manage this? It actually splits files into chunks, and then downloads each one with a different server connection - making downloads faster and more reliable. If you like film and music, you'll be able to take advantage of the sequential setting, so you can play the file while it's still downloading. You can also use the built-in video downloader - which has support for YouTube and Vimeo, with a video converter that changes file formats automatically once it's finished downloading. It's pretty incomprehensible to me that someone wouldn't like music, TV, or film - which is why Ninja Download Manger stands out as the best option around - despite there being many fantastic options. Note that the link to download the free version of Ninja Download Manager is at the very bottom of the developer's homepage. Read our full Ninja Download Manager review . ^ Back to the top Best free download manager for music 2. Free Download Manager Our expert review: Reasons to avoid Free Download Manager aims to be all things to all people – and mostly succeeds. It's a download accelerator, a BitTorrent client, an audio and video previewer and a traffic management tool, and because it is open source, it is completely free and receives regular updates from its community of developers. It includes powerful scheduling features and a very handy remote control that means you can leave your downloads running and check on their progress from any internet-connected device. It can crawl sites to download specific kinds of files, and you can choose to download only the bits of a ZIP file you actually want. For us, it's an exceptional program, and a true contender for the top spot. Read our full Free Download Manager review . ^ Back to the top Best free download manager for power users Our expert review: Reasons to avoid

JDownloader is a free, open source download manager with a massive developer community, and it's available for Windows, Linux and Mac. It's really one for power users, with support for over 300 decryption plugins, automatic RAR extraction, password list searching and OCR to complete some of the captcha 'I'm not a robot' checks you encounter on download sites. It's more than functional, but the interface is definitely geared towards those who know what they're doing. The clipboard observer doesn't work as often as we'd like, but is a great timesaver. Elsewhere, premium account integration makes this an absolute must if you're transferring many files at once. There are other things, besides the interface, that make JDownloader feel dated. You'll need the Java Runtime Environment to run it, and to be careful when installing it not to install the bundled adware. Beware, also fake 'download' buttons on the site; the actual download link is a line of text, not a button graphic. Read our full JDownloader review . ^ Back to the top Keep your files secure with the best free backup software . Best free download manager FAQs How to choose the best free download managers for you? When you're looking for the best download manager, you should probably start with thinking about the download process. How often you download thins, how smooth the process is. Is it easy and streamlined? Or is it a drawn out process including file decompression and extraction? Next, you'll want to evaluate how reliable and swift the downloads are, whether the download manager has file conversion tools, and how many formats it can convert files to. Download scheduling and media previews are some pretty convenient features - although not all download managers offer this. Look out for privacy protection features and check whether the software comes with pesky adware. What to look for in a download manager When you're choosing a download manager, the most important things to think about are the speed and reliability. No one wants to wait ages for their downloads to come through, especially if you often have multiple files being downloaded at once. For browsers, many download managers are able to resume broken downloads without losing any progress and protect against browser crashers - which is crucial for sensitive files. They should also provide automation and control with a download scheduler to queue up multiple files, ready to go at the optimum time (like off-peak network hours where your internet speed runs fastest and network congestion is slow). Finally, the manager should help users organize their downloads with categorization and browser integration. Basically, it should help you download files quickly and efficiently. How we tested the best free download manager We tested various free download managers to determine their performance. We looked at the ease of finding and download the manager, the download speeds, interface, learning curve, and privacy features. We checked what formats users could download files in, and whether the download managers offered reliable file conversion tools that supported various formats. We also considered additional features on the software, like download scheduling, batch downloading, and media previews, along with checking if they came bundled with adware or other software. Read more on how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar . Want to find out about commercial or marketing opportunities? Click here Out of date info, errors, complaints or broken links? Give us a nudge Got a suggestion for a product or service provider? Message us directly You've reached the end of the page. Jump back up to the top ^ Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than twenty books. Her latest, a love letter to music titled Small Town Joy , is on sale now. She is the singer in spectacularly obscure Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind . Ellen Jennings-Trace Staff Writer Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson Freelance writer 1 How to watch Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid: Free Streams & TV Channels for La Liga 2026/27 2 Gavin Verhey explains Magic: The Gathering’s approach to Universes Beyond 3 How to watch Man City vs Sunderland: Live streams, TV channels for Premier League 2026/27 4 Find out if you're the lord of this Lord of The Rings quiz 5 'The test isn’t whether AI can do something. 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