PHP force browser downloading image, Facebook like

Question

I am looking for a way to force the browser to download an image instead of just display it.

I already looked a lot (and deeply) and there seems to be no standard way to do it properly.

The way Facebook do it, it's with some PHP I guess they put a parameter at the end : ?dl=1

So it's certainly a PHP page behind with an url rewritting i guess

<a class="itemAnchor" role="menuitem" tabindex="-1"  href="http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/327910_2733459209258_1040639162_2895571_6924037615_o.jpg?dl=1" rel="ignore"><span class="itemLabel fsm">Download</span></a>

So if you have any clue how they do it... My clue is that they probably do something in the headers of the PHP page

You might want to give this article a read: http://www.ryboe.com/tutorials/php-headers-force-download Seems to be exactly what you're after, as long as you're actually serving the image yourself. — MichD, Mar 28 '12 at 22:35

Christian · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-28T22:45:52.420

6

They simply force downloading using HTTP headers just like you do with any other file:

<?php
    $file = 'C:\\test.jpg';

    header('Cache-Control: public');
    header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='.basename($file));
    header('Content-Type: '.mime_content_type($file));
    header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
    header('Content-Length: '.filesize($file));

    readfile($file);
?>

X-SendFile

For larger files or busy webservers, I would suggest the use of X-SendFile header instead of using readfile() function (note that you need mod_xsendfile installed in Apache).

    header('X-Sendfile: '.$file);
    //readfile($file);

.htccess

As you noticed, the Facebook URL points at a jpg file, rather than a PHP one. You will need to have URL rewriting in a .htaccess file to do this trick.

Something like the following should work (note you will need to use the real URL, checking the contents of $_SERVER to do so).

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteBase /
  RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

edited Mar 28 '12 at 22:45

answered Mar 28 '12 at 22:34

Christian

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1

what do you put in the headers then? – Jerome Ansia Mar 28 '12 at 22:35
i should use this: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616#section-19.5.1 as attachement? – Jerome Ansia Mar 28 '12 at 22:38
ahaha you compete to have my "accept answer" you were the fastest i will accept yours i have to wait 5 more min ;) Your answer is perfect thanks again :) – Jerome Ansia Mar 28 '12 at 22:44
1

Very elaborated/detailed answer. +1 – Jon McIntosh Mar 28 '12 at 22:46
1

Practice makes perfect ;). Happy to help! – Christian Mar 28 '12 at 22:48
yes i was ok with the .htaccess and PHP just the headers parameters that i didn't really know, but your answer will definitely help others as well i think ;) – Jerome Ansia Mar 28 '12 at 22:53

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 28 '12 at 22:37

2

You'll have to define the Content-Disposition variable in your header:

<?php
   header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='downloaded.png'");
?>

answered Mar 28 '12 at 22:37

Jon McIntosh

1,263
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score 1 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:20

1

You can achieve this by setting the appropriate headers before sending the file. Specifically you can set the Content-Type to whatever your content type is and Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=<yourfilename>.

There are some gotchas with IE; check this answer for more info.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:20

Community

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answered Mar 28 '12 at 22:37

cosmix

185
6

ok thanks i got it, i really looked at it for a long time so great! ;) – Jerome Ansia Mar 28 '12 at 22:41

PHP force browser downloading image, Facebook like

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