Save image from url with curl PHP

Question

I need to save an image from a url using CURL and save it to a folder on my server. I've been battling with this code to no avail. Ideally I'd like to grab the image and save it as "photo1" or something. Help!

    function GetImageFromUrl($link)

    {

    $ch = curl_init();

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 0);

    curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_URL,$link);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

    $result=curl_exec($ch);

    curl_close($ch);

    return $result;

    }

    $sourcecode = GetImageFromUrl($iticon);

    $savefile = fopen(' /img/uploads/' . $iconfilename, 'w');
    fwrite($savefile, $sourcecode);
    fclose($savefile);

score 125 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 25 '11 at 06:17

125

try this:

function grab_image($url,$saveto){
    $ch = curl_init ($url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER,1);
    $raw=curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close ($ch);
    if(file_exists($saveto)){
        unlink($saveto);
    }
    $fp = fopen($saveto,'x');
    fwrite($fp, $raw);
    fclose($fp);
}

and ensure that in php.ini allow_url_fopen is enable

answered Jun 25 '11 at 06:17

Komang

5,004
4
29
33

Thanks! I'll keep trying at this thing, and see if that works. – dfcode3 Jun 25 '11 at 06:49
20

Keep in mind well coded websites will look for a user-agent. Every browser, tablet or phone will always has a user-agent! If you are still unable to get an image, most likely because of user-agent detection, add this... `curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_USERAGENT,'MyImage Collector +http://www.yourdomainname/mybot.html');` or spoof a real one `curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_USERAGENT,'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.13) Gecko/20080311 Firefox/2.0.0.13');` – bbullis Jan 25 '14 at 00:05
Is there any file size limitation while saving image like this? Does the file upload limitation in PHP config affect this? – Foreever Aug 12 '14 at 07:32
1

"ensure that in php.ini allow_url_fopen is enable" do we need this setting? – apis17 Nov 01 '17 at 08:36
1

You should really add a warning for that 'unlink' function - it's super dangerous if you're not careful with it. Noobs beware! – 1owk3y Jun 19 '19 at 02:15

score 34 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 29 '14 at 17:05

Option #1

Instead of picking the binary/raw data into a variable and then writing, you can use CURLOPT_FILE option to directly show a file to the curl for the downloading.

Here is the function:

// takes URL of image and Path for the image as parameter
function download_image1($image_url, $image_file){
    $fp = fopen ($image_file, 'w+');              // open file handle

    $ch = curl_init($image_url);
    // curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false); // enable if you want
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FILE, $fp);          // output to file
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 1000);      // some large value to allow curl to run for a long time
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, 'Mozilla/5.0');
    // curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, true);   // Enable this line to see debug prints
    curl_exec($ch);

    curl_close($ch);                              // closing curl handle
    fclose($fp);                                  // closing file handle
}

And here is how you should call it:

// test the download function
download_image1("http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/10773ae6687b55736e171c038b4228d2", "local_image1.jpg");

Option #2

Now, If you want to download a very large file, that case above function may not become handy. You can use the below function this time for handling a big file. Also, you can print progress(in % or in any other format) if you want. Below function is implemented using a callback function that writes a chunk of data in to the file in to the progress of downloading.

// takes URL of image and Path for the image as parameter
function download_image2($image_url){
    $ch = curl_init($image_url);
    // curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false); // enable if you want
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 1000);      // some large value to allow curl to run for a long time
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, 'Mozilla/5.0');
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, "curl_callback");
    // curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, true);   // Enable this line to see debug prints
    curl_exec($ch);

    curl_close($ch);                              // closing curl handle
}

/** callback function for curl */
function curl_callback($ch, $bytes){
    global $fp;
    $len = fwrite($fp, $bytes);
    // if you want, you can use any progress printing here
    return $len;
}

And here is how to call this function:

// test the download function
$image_file = "local_image2.jpg";
$fp = fopen ($image_file, 'w+');              // open file handle
download_image2("http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/10773ae6687b55736e171c038b4228d2");
fclose($fp);                                  // closing file handle

Franz · Answer 3 · 2019-07-23T12:51:51.163

6

If you want to download an image from https:

$output_filename = 'output.png';
$host = "https://.../source.png"; // <-- Source image url (FIX THIS)
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $host);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION, CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0); // <-- don't forget this
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0); // <-- and this
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
$fp = fopen($output_filename, 'wb');
fwrite($fp, $result);
fclose($fp);

edited Jul 23 '19 at 12:51

answered Apr 11 '19 at 10:43

Franz

645
1
9
21

1

Your code solved my **The requested URL returned error: 503 Service Unavailable** problem. Thank you sir and have a nice day. – Alek Stephanok May 08 '19 at 06:22
1

Do not do this unless you want to be vulnerable to man in the middle attacks, which could replace the image content with a malicious script. – Prescol Jul 25 '22 at 15:36

score 3 · Answer 4 · edited Oct 22 '16 at 18:17

Improved version of Komang answer (add referer and user agent, check if you can write the file), return true if it's ok, false if there is an error :

public function downloadImage($url,$filename){
    if(file_exists($filename)){
        @unlink($filename);
    }
    $fp = fopen($filename,'w');
    if($fp){
        $ch = curl_init ($url);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER, 1);
        $result = parse_url($url);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, $result['scheme'].'://'.$result['host']);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT,'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/45.0');
        $raw=curl_exec($ch);
        curl_close ($ch);
        if($raw){
            fwrite($fp, $raw);
        }
        fclose($fp);
        if(!$raw){
            @unlink($filename);
            return false;
        }
        return true;
    }
    return false;
}

`CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER` reads the entire file to a php variable first. It's slower and can break on large files. Pass the file pointer with `CURLOPT_FILE`, instead. — Walf, Nov 22 '16 at 02:20

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 26 '16 at 10:04

This is easiest implement.

function downloadFile($url, $path)
{
    $newfname = $path;
    $file = fopen($url, 'rb');
    if ($file) {
        $newf = fopen($newfname, 'wb');
        if ($newf) {
            while (!feof($file)) {
                fwrite($newf, fread($file, 1024 * 8), 1024 * 8);
            }
        }
    }
    if ($file) {
        fclose($file);
    }
    if ($newf) {
        fclose($newf);
    }
}

Save image from url with curl PHP

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