# Downloading and Using Data Files

The first time you run a Skyfield program, it will typically download one or more data files from the Internet that provide data about planet or satellite orbits — one file for each call the program makes to Skyfield’s `load()` routine. If the program is attached to a terminal, then a simple progress bar will be displayed as Skyfield downloads each file.

    from skyfield.api import load
    planets = load('de421.bsp')
    print('Ready')

    [#################################] 100% de421.bsp
    Ready

The second time you run the program, however, the program will find the data file already sitting in the current directory. In that case, the program will use the file on disk without needing access to the Internet:

    Ready

Most programs will run just fine using the default `load()` routine provided in the `skyfield.api` module. But other programs may want to build their own loader so they have the chance to override its default behaviors.

## Specifying the download directory

The default `load()` object saves files directly to your current working directory — usually the folder from which you launched your Skyfield program.

But you can instead create your own loader that uses a different directory instead. Simply instantiate a `Loader` with the path to the directory where you would prefer for data files to be kept.

    from skyfield.api import Loader
    load = Loader('~/skyfield-data')

Now all of your `load()` operations will target that directory instead. Note that there is no restriction on how many `Loader` objects you can create — feel free to create one where you put time files, another for ephemeris files, and a third for Earth satellite TLEs, if that makes it easier for you to keep everything organized!

## Turning off the progress bar

If it annoys you to have a progress bar displayed on the screen each time that Skyfield downloads a file — which might especially be a problem when you are using Skyfield inside of a larger application — you can turn the progress bars off by building a `Loader` whose verbosity is set to false.

    from skyfield.api import Loader
    load = Loader('~/skyfield-data', verbose=False)