How to download image from URL

Question

Simply You can use following methods.

using (WebClient client = new WebClient()) 
{
    client.DownloadFile(new Uri(url), @"c:\temp\image35.png");
    // OR 
    client.DownloadFileAsync(new Uri(url), @"c:\temp\image35.png");
}

These methods are almost same as DownloadString(..) and DownloadStringAsync(...). They store the file in Directory rather than in C# string and no need of Format extension in URi

If You don't know the Format(.png, .jpeg etc) of Image

public void SaveImage(string imageUrl, string filename, ImageFormat format)
{    
    WebClient client = new WebClient();
    Stream stream = client.OpenRead(imageUrl);
    Bitmap bitmap;  bitmap = new Bitmap(stream);

    if (bitmap != null)
    {
        bitmap.Save(filename, format);
    }
        
    stream.Flush();
    stream.Close();
    client.Dispose();
}

Using it

try
{
    SaveImage("--- Any Image URL---", "--- Any Image Path ---", ImageFormat.Png)
}
catch(ExternalException)
{
    // Something is wrong with Format -- Maybe required Format is not 
    // applicable here
}
catch(ArgumentNullException)
{   
    // Something wrong with Stream
}

Depending whether or not you know the image format, here are ways you can do it :

Download Image to a file, knowing the image format

using (WebClient webClient = new WebClient()) 
{
   webClient.DownloadFile("http://yoururl.com/image.png", "image.png") ; 
}

Download Image to a file without knowing the image format

You can use Image.FromStream to load any kind of usual bitmaps (jpg, png, bmp, gif, ... ), it will detect automaticaly the file type and you don't even need to check the url extension (which is not a very good practice). E.g:

using (WebClient webClient = new WebClient()) 
{
    byte [] data = webClient.DownloadData("https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t34.0-12/10555140_10201501435212873_1318258071_n.jpg?oh=97ebc03895b7acee9aebbde7d6b002bf&oe=53C9ABB0&__gda__=1405685729_110e04e71d9");

   using (MemoryStream mem = new MemoryStream(data)) 
   {
       using (var yourImage = Image.FromStream(mem)) 
       { 
          // If you want it as Png
           yourImage.Save("path_to_your_file.png", ImageFormat.Png) ; 

          // If you want it as Jpeg
           yourImage.Save("path_to_your_file.jpg", ImageFormat.Jpeg) ; 
       }
   } 

}

Note : ArgumentException may be thrown by Image.FromStream if the downloaded content is not a known image type.

Check this reference on MSDN to find all format available. Here are reference to WebClient and Bitmap.

For anyone who wants to download an image WITHOUT saving it to a file:

Image DownloadImage(string fromUrl)
{
    using (System.Net.WebClient webClient = new System.Net.WebClient())
    {
        using (Stream stream = webClient.OpenRead(fromUrl))
        {
            return Image.FromStream(stream);
        }
    }
}

.NET has changed a bit over the years, making the other answers on this post pretty dated:

• They use Image from System.Drawing (which is not available for .NET Core) to find the image format
• They use System.Net.WebClient which is deprecated

We don't recommend that you use the WebClient class for new development. Instead, use the System.Net.Http.HttpClient class.

.NET Core asynchronous solution

Getting the file extension

The first part of getting the file extension is to remove all the unnecessary parts from the URL. We can use Uri.GetLeftPart() with UriPartial.Path to get everything from the Scheme up to the Path.
In other words, https://www.example.com/image.png?query&with.dots becomes https://www.example.com/image.png.

After that, we can use Path.GetExtension() to get only the extension (in my previous example, .png).

var uriWithoutQuery = uri.GetLeftPart(UriPartial.Path);
var fileExtension = Path.GetExtension(uriWithoutQuery);

Downloading the image

From here it should be straight forward. Download the image with HttpClient.GetByteArrayAsync, create the path, ensure the directory exists and then write the bytes to the path with File.WriteAllBytesAsync()

private async Task DownloadImageAsync(string directoryPath, string fileName, Uri uri)
{
    using var httpClient = new HttpClient();

    // Get the file extension
    var uriWithoutQuery = uri.GetLeftPart(UriPartial.Path);
    var fileExtension = Path.GetExtension(uriWithoutQuery);

    // Create file path and ensure directory exists
    var path = Path.Combine(directoryPath, $"{fileName}{fileExtension}");
    Directory.CreateDirectory(directoryPath);

    // Download the image and write to the file
    var imageBytes = await httpClient.GetByteArrayAsync(uri);
    await File.WriteAllBytesAsync(path, imageBytes);
}

Note that you need the following using directives.

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Net.Http;

Example usage

var folder = "images";
var fileName = "test";
var url = "https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/458291463663386646/592779619212460054/Screenshot_20190624-201411.jpg?query&with.dots";

await DownloadImageAsync(folder, fileName, new Uri(url));

Notes

• It's bad practice to create a new HttpClient for every method call. It is supposed to be reused throughout the application. I wrote a short example of an ImageDownloader(50 lines) with more documentation that correctly reuses the HttpClient and properly disposes of it that you can find here.