How to download files using axios

When response comes with a downloadable file, response headers will be something like

Content-Disposition: "attachment;filename=report.xls"
Content-Type: "application/octet-stream" // or Content-type: "application/vnd.ms-excel"

What you can do is create a separate component, which will contain a hidden iframe.

  import * as React from 'react';

  var MyIframe = React.createClass({

     render: function() {
         return (
           <div style={{display: 'none'}}>
               <iframe src={this.props.iframeSrc} />
           </div>
         );
     }
  });

Now, you can pass the url of the downloadable file as prop to this component, So when this component will receive prop, it will re-render and file will be downloaded.

Edit: You can also use js-file-download module. Link to Github repo

const FileDownload = require('js-file-download');

Axios({
  url: 'http://localhost/downloadFile',
  method: 'GET',
  responseType: 'blob', // Important
}).then((response) => {
    FileDownload(response.data, 'report.csv');
});

Hope this helps :)

1. Download the file with Axios as a responseType: 'blob'
2. Create a file link using the blob in the response from Axios/Server
3. Create <a> HTML element with a the href linked to the file link created in step 2 & click the link
4. Clean up the dynamically created file link and HTML element

axios({
    url: 'http://api.dev/file-download', //your url
    method: 'GET',
    responseType: 'blob', // important
}).then((response) => {
    // create file link in browser's memory
    const href = URL.createObjectURL(response.data);

    // create "a" HTLM element with href to file & click
    const link = document.createElement('a');
    link.href = href;
    link.setAttribute('download', 'file.pdf'); //or any other extension
    document.body.appendChild(link);
    link.click();

    // clean up "a" element & remove ObjectURL
    document.body.removeChild(link);
    URL.revokeObjectURL(url);
});

Check out the quirks at https://gist.github.com/javilobo8/097c30a233786be52070986d8cdb1743

Full credits to: https://gist.github.com/javilobo8

More documentation for URL.createObjectURL is available on MDN. It's critical to release the object with URL.revokeObjectURL to prevent a memory leak. In the function above, since we've already downloaded the file, we can immediately revoke the object.

Each time you call createObjectURL(), a new object URL is created, even if you've already created one for the same object. Each of these must be released by calling URL.revokeObjectURL() when you no longer need them.

Browsers will release object URLs automatically when the document is unloaded; however, for optimal performance and memory usage, if there are safe times when you can explicitly unload them, you should do so.