Force Files to Download Instead of Opening

November 5th, 2007

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Have ever wished that you could force a file to download instead of opening in a browser? Some common files like MP3s and PDFs will open in your reader’s browser if the proper parent plugin is installed. Sometimes you want to force them to download the file without having to right-click and save it.

This action can be achieved very easily in Apache by modifying the .htaccess file. You can set it at your domain root to affect your entire site, or you can set it in subdirectories to only affect parts of your site.

All you need to know is your file extension(s). Then add an octet-stream mime type for each. So you might add the following to your .htaccess file.

AddType application/octet-stream .avi 
AddType application/octet-stream .mpg
AddType application/octet-stream .mov
AddType application/octet-stream .pdf

The above example would force a download message and prevent any AVI, MPG, MOV, or PDF file from opening in a browser.

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Related Posts:

• Force a File to Display Instead of Executing
• Open Office 2007 Files in Older Versions
• Forcing a Specific Scripting Engine
• Using .htaccess to Parse HTML Files as PHP
• Error “There is no script engine for file extension”

This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2007 at 2:35 am and is filed under Apache. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

8 Responses to “Force Files to Download Instead of Opening”

1. Rob Says:
   August 25th, 2008 at 10:57 am

   Hey,
   Thanks for the tip! I have been trying to get this result for a few hours now. I have set up HTML email signatures for everyone in my office with a link to download our Vcards, but the vcfs keft displaying in the browser. Thank you very much!

2. Nilpo Says:
   August 25th, 2008 at 1:08 pm

   No problem at all. I’m glad you found this tip helpful!

3. Cristiano Says:
   October 27th, 2008 at 7:36 am

   I need running this at IE6 , but not working.
   not force download in ie6.

   att,
   Cristiano

4. Jon Says:
   May 26th, 2009 at 9:19 am

   Great! A simple answer to a common question.

   Thanks

5. Nilpo Says:
   May 26th, 2009 at 11:24 am

   Thanks for taking the time to comment. I’m glad you found this useful.

6. Harsh Says:
   December 4th, 2009 at 10:54 am

   Hi.. I don’t know your name,

   but that you very much for your short description about how to display file instead of executing that and how to download instead of opening. That helps me a lot…

   thank you very much..
   Harsh

7. Tim Says:
   January 6th, 2010 at 4:08 pm

   Good afternoon. I’am french speaker. You’re post interest me a lot. I think frensh are according with you. Sorry for languge error

8. Nilpo Says:
   January 6th, 2010 at 5:38 pm

   Merci, Tim. J’apprécie tes mots aimables.

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