Downloading resources in HTML5 - a[download]

Eric Bidelman

Chrome now supports the HTML spec's new download attribute to a elements. When used, this attribute signifies that the resource it points to should be downloaded by the browser rather than navigating to it.

From Downloading Resources:

Note: The download attribute, if present, indicates that the author intends the hyperlink to be used for downloading a resource. The attribute may have a value; the value, if any, specifies the default filename that the author recommends for use in labeling the resource in a local file system. There are no restrictions on allowed values, but authors are cautioned that most file systems have limitations with regard to what punctuation is supported in file names, and user agents are likely to adjust file names accordingly. The attribute can furthermore be given a value, to specify the filename that user agents are to use when storing the resource in a file system. This value can be overridden by the Content-Disposition HTTP header's filename parameter.

For example, clicking the following link downloads the .png as "MyGoogleLogo.png" instead of navigating to its href value: download me. The markup for this is as follows:

<a href="http://web-central.appspot.com/.../web-fundamentals-icon192x192.png" download="WebfundamentalsLogo">download me</a>

The real benefit of a[download] will be when working with blob: URLs and filesystem: URLs URLs. It'll give users a way to download content created/modified within your app.

Full Demo

One thing to note is that in the above example, the image has same origin with respect to website. If you try to use a link of image from different origin the link may not work as a navigating link rather than a downloading link. This is because many versions of browser does not support the download policy on cross-origin files. For example Chrome versions prior to 65 did allow downloading cross origin files and it was deprecated in later versions. Read this for more detail. You can use Content-Disposition header to force a download from other origin.

Browser support: only the current Chrome dev channel release (14.0.835.15+) supports this attribute.