Force Download an Image Using Javascript

Question

I want to know if there is any way to make a script using Javascript/jQuery to download (open a download dialog) a image so the browser won't just show it.

Answer 1

You need to use server-side scripting for this. Search on stackoverflow.

Alternately, your server might allow you to alter headers dynamically via configuration.

Apache solution with mod_headers

Place your downloadable images in a directory. Inside this directory, create a .htaccess file with the following contents:

SetEnvIf Request_URI "([^/]+\.jpg)$" REQUESTED_IMAGE_BASENAME=$1
SetEnvIf Request_URI "([^/]+\.png)$" REQUESTED_IMAGE_BASENAME=$1
Header set Content-Disposition "attachment; filename=\"%{REQUESTED_IMAGE_BASENAME}e\"" env=REQUESTED_IMAGE_BASENAME

Test Request:

HEAD /test/Water%20lilies.jpg HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost

Test Response:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2011 09:03:52 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.17 (Win32)
Last-Modified: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 14:00:00 GMT
ETag: "26000000017df3-14752-38c32e813d800"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 83794
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Water lilies.jpg"
Content-Type: image/jpeg

HTML5 Solution

You can use the HTML5 download attribute on anchors:

<p>Example 1<br>
   <a href="http://dummyimage.com/600x400/000/fff.png" download>Download this image</a></p>

<p>Example 2<br>
   <a href="http://dummyimage.com/600x400/000/fff.png" download="alternate-filename.png"><img
       src="http://dummyimage.com/150x100/000/fff.png"></a></p>