Force file download with php using header()

Based on Farhan Sahibole's answer:

        header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=Image.png');
        header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream'); // Downloading on Android might fail without this
        ob_clean();

        readfile($file);

This is all I needed for this to work. I stripped off anything that isn't required for this to work.

Key is to use ob_clean();

This worked for me like a charm for downloading PNG and PDF.

header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.$file_name.'"');
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
header('Expires: 0');
header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
header('Pragma: public');
header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($file_url)); //Absolute URL
ob_clean();
flush();
readfile($file_url); //Absolute URL
exit();

I’m pretty sure you don’t add the mime type as a JPEG on file downloads:

header('Content-Type: image/png');

These headers have never failed me:

$quoted = sprintf('"%s"', addcslashes(basename($file), '"\\'));
$size   = filesize($file);

header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=' . $quoted); 
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
header('Connection: Keep-Alive');
header('Expires: 0');
header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
header('Pragma: public');
header('Content-Length: ' . $size);