How can I download a file using window.fetch?

Question

If I want to download a file, what should I do in the then block below?

function downloadFile(token, fileId) {
  let url = `https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v2/files/${fileId}?alt=media`;
  return fetch(url, {
    method: 'GET',
    headers: {
      'Authorization': token
    }
  }).then(...);
}

Note the codes are in client-side.

Answer 1

EDIT: syg answer is better. Just use downloadjs library.

The answer I provided works well on Chrome, but on Firefox and IE you need some different variant of this code. It's better to use library for that.

---

I had similar problem (need to pass authorization header to download a file so this solution didn't helped).

But based on this answer you can use createObjectURL to make browser save a file downloaded by Fetch API.

getAuthToken()
    .then(token => {
        fetch("http://example.com/ExportExcel", {
            method: 'GET',
            headers: new Headers({
                "Authorization": "Bearer " + token
            })
        })
        .then(response => response.blob())
        .then(blob => {
            var url = window.URL.createObjectURL(blob);
            var a = document.createElement('a');
            a.href = url;
            a.download = "filename.xlsx";
            document.body.appendChild(a); // we need to append the element to the dom -> otherwise it will not work in firefox
            a.click();    
            a.remove();  //afterwards we remove the element again         
        });
    });

Answer 2

This is more shorter and efficient, no libraries only fetch API

const url ='http://sample.example.file.doc'
const authHeader ="Bearer 6Q************" 

const options = {
  headers: {
    Authorization: authHeader
  }
};
 fetch(url, options)
  .then( res => res.blob() )
  .then( blob => {
    var file = window.URL.createObjectURL(blob);
    window.location.assign(file);
  });

This solution does not allow you to change filename for the downloaded file. The filename will be a random uuid.

Answer 3

I temporarily solve this problem by using download.js and blob.

let download = require('./download.min');

...

function downloadFile(token, fileId) {
  let url = `https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v2/files/${fileId}?alt=media`;
  return fetch(url, {
    method: 'GET',
    headers: {
      'Authorization': token
    }
  }).then(function(resp) {
    return resp.blob();
  }).then(function(blob) {
    download(blob);
  });
}

It's working for small files, but maybe not working for large files. I think I should dig Stream more.

Answer 4

function download(dataurl, filename) {
  var a = document.createElement("a");
  a.href = dataurl;
  a.setAttribute("download", filename);
  a.click();
  return false;
}

download("data:text/html,HelloWorld!", "helloWorld.txt");

or:

function download(url, filename) {
fetch(url).then(function(t) {
    return t.blob().then((b)=>{
        var a = document.createElement("a");
        a.href = URL.createObjectURL(b);
        a.setAttribute("download", filename);
        a.click();
    }
    );
});
}

download("https://get.geojs.io/v1/ip/geo.json","geoip.json")
download("data:text/html,HelloWorld!", "helloWorld.txt");