Select directory path in JavaScript [duplicate]

Question

Is there any way to select a directory via JavaScript?

Not for uploading a file, just to choose a directory path. (Directory dialog or something)

Answer 1

You can't, for security reasons (you don't want a website to be able to know about your file system).

See below, when you get the value of a file input, it will be mangled (on my computer, for example it will always be c:/fakepath/something). The file input also has problems for your usecase : selecting a folder will give you the list of its contents, so an empty folder will log nothing in my snippet.

function browseResult(e){
  var fileselector = document.getElementById('fileselector');
  console.log(fileselector.value);
}

<input id="fileselector" type="file" onchange="browseResult(event)" webkitdirectory directory multiple="false" style="display:none" />
<button onclick="getElementById('fileselector').click()">browse</button>

You could do it via a plugin, such as Flash, Java or Air for example, but users would have to either have it installed already or install it. The plugin ecosystem seems pretty much dead.