Download files from server php

Question

I have a URL where I save some projects from my work, they are mostly MDB files, but some JPG and PDF are there too.

What I need to do is to list every file from that directory (already done) and give the user the option to download it.

How is that achieved using PHP?

Isn't this handled by the browser? – SomeKittens Aug 23 '12 at 14:39 — SomeKittens, Aug 23 '12 at 14:39
but how do i get the browser to start the download? – Gustavo Benito Silva Aug 23 '12 at 14:40 — Gustavo Benito Silva, Aug 23 '12 at 14:40

Mihai Iorga · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-02T17:55:25.937

43

To read directory contents you can use readdir() and use a script, in my example download.php, to download files

if ($handle = opendir('/path/to/your/dir/')) {
    while (false !== ($entry = readdir($handle))) {
        if ($entry != "." && $entry != "..") {
            echo "<a href='download.php?file=".$entry."'>".$entry."</a>\n";
        }
    }
    closedir($handle);
}

In download.php you can force browser to send download data, and use basename() to make sure client does not pass other file name like ../config.php

$file = basename($_GET['file']);
$file = '/path/to/your/dir/'.$file;

if(!file_exists($file)){ // file does not exist
    die('file not found');
} else {
    header("Cache-Control: public");
    header("Content-Description: File Transfer");
    header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$file");
    header("Content-Type: application/zip");
    header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");

    // read the file from disk
    readfile($file);
}

edited Jun 02 '18 at 17:55

answered Aug 23 '12 at 14:42

Mihai Iorga

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I get a 403 message; checked on folder permission and is set to 777, so i have no clue what's going on. – Gustavo Benito Silva Aug 23 '12 at 14:54
make sure the path is ok ... path to folder and file – Mihai Iorga Aug 23 '12 at 15:26
Check the content of your .htaccess file in the directory where your file is. – Cary Millsap May 05 '17 at 19:11
should always check that the file name is a valid filename and not including characters that should not be there. i.e. ../../../config.php might allow for downloading of the master config file of a website. – Andrew Killen Jan 16 '18 at 13:44

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 05 '19 at 07:41

Here is the code that will not download courpt files

$filename = "myfile.jpg";
$file = "/uploads/images/".$filename;

header('Content-type: application/octet-stream');
header("Content-Type: ".mime_content_type($file));
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=".$filename);
while (ob_get_level()) {
    ob_end_clean();
}
readfile($file);

I have included mime_content_type which will return content type of file .

To prevent from corrupt file download i have added ob_get_level() and ob_end_clean();

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 23 '12 at 14:41

2

If the folder is accessible from the browser (not outside the document root of your web server), then you just need to output links to the locations of those files. If they are outside the document root, you will need to have links, buttons, whatever, that point to a PHP script that handles getting the files from their location and streaming to the response.

answered Aug 23 '12 at 14:41

Brian Warshaw

22,657
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If file is image or text it will not download it. – Mihai Iorga Aug 23 '12 at 14:42
If it's a file that opens in the browser, you can use the browser's save functionality to save it to the file system. The mission is still accomplished. – Brian Warshaw Aug 23 '12 at 14:44
If you can tell that to customer, I've learned that most of `consumers` don't know what to do if they see a text file opened in browser, or a pdf file .. – Mihai Iorga Aug 23 '12 at 14:46

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered May 22 '17 at 05:48

Here is a simpler solution to list all files in a directory and to download it.

In your index.php file

<?php
$dir = "./";

$allFiles = scandir($dir);
$files = array_diff($allFiles, array('.', '..')); // To remove . and .. 

foreach($files as $file){
     echo "<a href='download.php?file=".$file."'>".$file."</a><br>";
}

The scandir() function list all files and directories inside the specified path. It works with both PHP 5 and PHP 7.

Now in the download.php

<?php
$filename = basename($_GET['file']);
// Specify file path.
$path = ''; // '/uplods/'
$download_file =  $path.$filename;

if(!empty($filename)){
    // Check file is exists on given path.
    if(file_exists($download_file))
    {
      header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=' . $filename);  
      readfile($download_file); 
      exit;
    }
    else
    {
      echo 'File does not exists on given path';
    }
 }

Download files from server php

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