Brave Browser Freezes When Downloading Any File on macOS

Brave Browser Desktop Support
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1

Hi everyone,

I’m facing a strange issue with Brave on my Mac, and I’d appreciate any help or suggestions.

Whenever I try to download any file (PDFs, ZIPs, images, installers, etc.), Brave immediately freezes. The browser becomes completely unresponsive, and I have to force quit it using Activity Monitor. This happens every single time I start a download.

System details:

  • OS: macOS

  • Browser: Latest version of Brave

  • Issue: Browser freezes as soon as a download starts.

What I’ve tried so far:

  • Restarted the browser and my Mac.

  • Updated Brave to the latest version.

  • Tried downloading from multiple websites (same issue everywhere).

  • The problem persists regardless of the file type.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is this a known issue, or are there any troubleshooting steps I should try?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

2

Do you have any extensions installed in the browser? If so can you please try disabling them and test again?

If the extensions aren’t the issue, can you please try creating a new browser profile (Menu > More tools > Add profile), close your original profile window, then try downloading a file in the new profile?