Saving a file in memory on the client side

Question

I have been looking for a way to save the document edits a user has done to their system. For now I need to this without server side interaction. All of the solutions I have found on here Are 4+ years old e.g.,

Create a file in memory for user to download, not through server

Using HTML5/Javascript to generate and save a file

Is this still the best way or has an alternative been discovered that I am missing. Also, to make things worse I need something that works in IE

What *specifically* are you trying to achieve? You may find the [Web Storage API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Storage_API) useful — jonny, Aug 21 '15 at 16:05
On the first link you sent, there are some answers there that are html-5 ready and they're most probably up to date. Only problem I could think of there is that you need to drop support for old browsers. — Nathan, Aug 21 '15 at 16:06
Specify the type of documents you want to edit. Because for text files we can do it very simply. For media elements images/audios/videos we need canvas,FileReader,HTML5 audio/video. — Manohar Gunturu, Aug 21 '15 at 16:10
Of course after posting this message http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11336663/how-to-make-a-browser-display-a-save-as-dialog-so-the-user-can-save-the-conten?lq=1 — Doc, Aug 21 '15 at 16:28
Of course after posting this message I found out that there is a download attribute for http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11336663/how-to-make-a-browser-display-a-save-as-dialog-so-the-user-can-save-the-conten?lq=1 — Doc, Aug 21 '15 at 18:10

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 21 '15 at 16:08

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If I were you I would use localStorage. localStorage is like cookies, but more powerful, easier to use, and more dynamic. localStorage is supported by IE 8 and higher.

There's a demo of it here: http://scripting.com/misc/localStorageDemo.html.

You could store the file as an object (because that's what it typically is parsed as in the browser).

If you'd like to know more about it, you can read here: http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/html5_webstorage.asp.

answered Aug 21 '15 at 16:08

Elegant.Scripting

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I have been unable to reliably use localStorage. I keep getting a "Persistent storage maximum size reached NS_ERROR_DOM_QUOTA_REACHED" and occasionally a "NS_ERROR_OUT_OF_MEMORY" ( I believe the out of memory error is caused by having to many browser tabs opened) . So as an alternative when saving to localStorage fails I was going to allow the user to save their state to file and thus be able to load their web state at a later date. In the future we will have a DB to handle this situation but for now I need it done on the client side – Doc Aug 21 '15 at 16:49
As I mentioned in my above comment I have learned that their is a download attribute for . I was able to save the webstate to file and saw that it is over 10mb which is the reason for the Quote Reached error – Doc Aug 21 '15 at 16:59
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@user354862 yup, doing things client-side has its limits. In some cases, you'll have to use the server. – Elegant.Scripting Aug 21 '15 at 17:33

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 03 '15 at 15:47

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I have started to use Mozilla's localForage https://mozilla.github.io/localForage/ which will uses IndexDB (if available) and fallback to localStorage and WebSql. IndexDB provides greater storing capacity on the client-side than localStorage.

answered Sep 03 '15 at 15:47

Doc

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The link in this answer is now broken, but localForage is still [available on GitHub](https://github.com/localForage/localForage). – Anderson Green Feb 17 '22 at 23:20

Saving a file in memory on the client side

2 Answers2