Clearing an HTML file upload field via JavaScript

Question

I want to reset a file upload field when the user selects another option   Is this possible via JavaScript  I m suspecting that the file upload element is treated differently because it interacts with the user s file system  and maybe it s immutable   Basically  what I want is something like  pseudo-code       Choose selecting existing file     select-file   bind  focus   function          Clear any files currently selected in  upload-file       upload-file   val                Choose uploading new one - this works ok     upload-file   bind  focus   function          Clear any files currently selected in  select-file       select-file   val              NB  This question and its answers span the period from 2009 to today  Browsers and approaches have changed in that time  please select your solutions with this in mind

User · Answer

Shorter version that works perfect for me that is as follow   document querySelector   fileUpload   value

User · Answer

They don t get focus events  so you ll have to use a trick like this  only way to clear it is to clear the entire form   lt script type  text javascript  gt        function                 wrapper   bind  mouseover   function                    form   get 0  reset                         lt  script gt    lt form gt   lt div id  wrapper  gt       lt input type file value      gt   lt  div gt   lt  form gt

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Simply now in 2014 the input element having an id supports the function val       For the input -   lt input type  file  multiple  true  id  File1  name  choose-file    gt    This js clears the input element -      File1   val

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If you have the following    lt input type  file  id  FileSelect  gt    then just do       FileSelect   val        to reset or clear last selected file

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jQuery tested method working fine in FF  amp  Chrome     function          clearUploadField   function idsel               your-id input name    idsel       val

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really like keep things simple like this        input type file    wrap   lt form gt  lt  form gt    parent   trigger  reset   children   unwrap   lt form gt  lt  form gt

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You can t set the input value in most browsers  but what you can do is create a new element  copy the attributes from the old element  and swap the two   Given a form like    lt form gt        lt input id  fileInput  name  fileInput  type  file    gt    lt  form gt    The straight DOM way   function clearFileInput id          var oldInput   document getElementById id         var newInput   document createElement  input          newInput type    file        newInput id   oldInput id       newInput name   oldInput name       newInput className   oldInput className       newInput style cssText   oldInput style cssText          TODO  copy any other relevant attributes       oldInput parentNode replaceChild newInput  oldInput       clearFileInput  fileInput      Simple DOM way  This may not work in older browsers that don t like file inputs   oldInput parentNode replaceChild oldInput cloneNode    oldInput     The jQuery way       fileInput   replaceWith     fileInput   val     clone true         val     required for FF compatibility as per  nmit026   Resetting the whole form via jQuery  https   stackoverflow com a 13351234 1091947

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I know it is quite old  but testing in the browser    0 value null     when  0 is the file upload element we talking about   erased the value and allow me to rechoose THE SAME FILE as before  means it worked    Tested in Chrome 81  FF 76  Safari  on iPad mini   360 browser  Baidu browser  QQ browser  android browser    Explanation   As per my point of view that files selected can be more than 1  you d better not set the value to a string - the final value sits in  0 files which may be more than 1  The browser need to parse the selected values from  value   so it is an active property  Set it to null  as per my understanding  will cause the browser to parse it to    empty list in  0 files  this is what happened

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I faced the issue with ng2-file-upload for angular  if you are looking for the solution on angular by ng2-file-upload  refer below code  HTML    lt input type  file  name  myfile   activeFrameinputFile ng2FileSelect  uploader   frameUploader   change   frameUploader uploadAll      gt   component  import   Component  OnInit  ElementRef  ViewChild   from   angular core     ViewChild  activeFrameinputFile  InputFrameVariable  ElementRef   this frameUploader onSuccessItem    item  response  status  headers    gt        this InputFrameVariable nativeElement value

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try this its work fine   document getElementById  fileUpload   parentNode innerHTML   document getElementById  fileUpload   parentNode innerHTML

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Simple solution   document getElementById  upload-files   value

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I know the FormData api is not so friendly for older browsers and such  but in many cases you are anyways using it  and hopefully testing for support  so this will work fine    x000D   x000D  function clearFile form    x000D       make a copy of your form x000D    var formData   new FormData form   x000D       reset the form temporarily  your copy is safe  x000D    form reset    x000D    for  var pair of formData entries      x000D         if it s not the file   x000D      if  pair 0      uploadNameAttributeFromForm     x000D           refill form value x000D        form pair 0   value   pair 1   x000D        x000D       x000D      x000D       make new copy for AJAX submission if you into that    x000D    formData   new FormData form   x000D    x000D   x000D   x000D

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The code I ended up using was   clearReviewFileSel  function       var oldInput   document getElementById  edit-file-upload-review-pdf       var newInput   document createElement  input      newInput id      oldInput id     newInput type    oldInput type     newInput name    oldInput name     newInput size    oldInput size     newInput class    oldInput class     oldInput parentNode replaceChild newInput  oldInput        Thanks everyone for the suggestions and pointers

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For compatibility when ajax is not available  set  val     or it will resend the last ajax-uploaded file that is still present in the input   The following should properly clear the input whilst retaining  on   events   var input      input type  file      input html input html    val

User · Answer

This jQuery worked for me in IE11  Chrome 53  and Firefox 49   cloned       fileInput   clone true   cloned val          fileInput   replaceWith cloned

User · Answer

Try this code        input type file    wrap   lt div id  fileWrapper   gt         fileWrapper   append   lt div id  duplicateFile    style  display none  gt       fileWrapper   html        lt  div gt         fileWrapper   html     duplicateFile   html

User · Answer

Yes  the upload element is protected from direct manipulation in different browsers  However  you could erase the element from the DOM tree and then insert a new one in its place via JavaScript  That would give you the same result   Something along the lines of       container-element   html   lt input id  upload-file  type  file   gt

User · Answer

Just another one for the pot but you can actually change the type of an input  If you set the type to text  then back to file  it seems to reset the element   var myFileInput   document getElementById  myfileinput    myFileInput type    text   myFileInput type    file     It resets  Tested in Google Chrome  Opera  Edge  IE 11

[javascript] Clearing an HTML file upload field via JavaScript

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