How to start automatic download of a file in Internet Explorer

Question

How do I initialize an automatic download of a file in Internet Explorer   For example  in the download page  I want the download link to appear and a message   If you download doesn t start automatically      etc   The download should begin shortly after the page loads   In Firefox this is easy  you just need to include a meta tag in the header   lt meta http-equiv  Refresh  content  n url  gt  where n is the number of seconds and url is the download URL  This does not work in Internet Explorer  How do I make this work in Internet Explorer browsers

User · Answer

Works on Chrome  firefox and IE8 and above   var link   document createElement  a    document body appendChild link   link href   url  link click

User · Answer

I hate when sites complicate download so much and use hacks instead of a good old link   Dead simple version    lt a href  file zip  gt Start automatic download  lt  a gt    It works  In every browser     If you want to download a file that is usually displayed inline  such as an image  then HTML5 has a download attribute that forces download of the file  It also allows you to override filename  although there is a better way to do it     lt a href  report-generator php  download  result xls  gt Download lt  a gt    Version with a  thanks  page   If you want to display  thanks  after download  then use    lt a href  file zip      onclick  if  event button  0        setTimeout function   document body innerHTML  thanks    500   gt   Start automatic download   lt  a gt    Function in that setTimeout might be more advanced and e g  download full page via AJAX  but don t navigate away from the page      don t touch window location or activate other links       The point is that link to download is real  can be copied  dragged  intercepted by download accelerators  gets  visited color  doesn t re-download if page is left open after browser restart  etc   That s what I use for ImageOptim

User · Answer

For those trying to trigger the download using a dynamic link it s tricky to get it working consistently across browsers      I had trouble in IE10  downloading a PDF and used  dandavis  download function  https   github com rndme download    IE10  needs msSaveBlob

User · Answer

I hope this will works all the browsers  You can also set the auto download timing    lt html gt   lt head gt   lt title gt Start Auto Download file lt  title gt   lt script src  http   code jquery com jquery-3 2 1 min js  gt  lt  script gt   lt script gt    function        a data-auto-download    each function    var  this     this   setTimeout function     window location    this attr  href       2000            lt  script gt   lt  head gt   lt body gt   lt div class  wrapper  gt   lt p gt The download should start shortly  If it doesn t  click  lt a data-auto-download href  auto-download zip  gt here lt  a gt   lt  p gt   lt  div gt   lt  body gt   lt  html gt    Demo Here

User · Answer

I recently solved it by placing the following script on the page    setTimeout function      window location    my download url      5000    I agree that a meta-refresh would be nicer but if it doesn t work what do you do

User · Answer

lt meta http-equiv  Refresh  content  n url  gt    That s It  Easy  Right    x000D   x000D   lt meta http-equiv  Refresh  content  n url  gt  x000D   x000D   x000D

User · Answer

I checked and found  it will work on button click via writing onclick event to Anchor tag or Input button  onclick  javascript setTimeout window location  File location   1000

User · Answer

Be sure to serve up the file without a no-cache header  IE has issues with this  if user tries to  open  the download without saving first

User · Answer

I think this will work for you  But visitors are easy if they got something in seconds without spending more time and hence they will also again visit your site   lt a href  file zip      onclick  if  event button  0        setTimeout function   document body innerHTML  thanks    500   gt   Start automatic download   lt  a gt

User · Answer

This is what I m using in some sites  requires jQuery       document  ready function         var downloadUrl    your file url       setTimeout  window location assign      downloadUrl          1000         The file is downloaded automatically after 1 second

User · Answer

This seemed to work for me - across all browsers     lt script type  text javascript  gt      window onload   function         document location    somefile zip              lt  script gt

User · Answer

A simple bit of jQuery solved this problem for me     function          window  bind  load   function              div downloadProject   delay 1500  append   lt iframe width  0  height  0  frameborder  0  src   YOUR FILE SRC   gt  lt  iframe gt                   In my HTML  I simply have   lt div class  downloadProject  gt  lt  div gt    All this does is wait a second and a half  then append the div with the iframe referring to the file that you want to download  When the iframe is updated onto the page  your browser downloads the file  Simple as that   D

User · Answer

I used this  seems working and is just simple JS  no framework   Your file should start downloading in a few seconds   If downloading doesn t start automatically  lt a id  downloadLink  href   link to your file   gt click here to get your file lt  a gt     lt script gt       var downloadTimeout   setTimeout function              window location   document getElementById  downloadLink   href         2000    lt  script gt    NOTE  this starts the timeout in the moment the page is loaded

User · Answer

Back to the roots  i use this    lt meta http-equiv  refresh  content  0  url YOURFILEURL   gt    Maybe not WC3 conform but works perfect on all browsers  no HTML5 JQUERY Javascript   Greetings Tom

User · Answer

One more     var a   document createElement  a    a setAttribute  href   dataUri   a setAttribute  download   filename    var aj     a   aj appendTo  body    aj 0  click    aj remove

User · Answer

Nice jquery solution   jQuery  a auto-start   get 0  click      You can even set different file name for download inside  lt a gt  tag   Your download should start shortly  If not - you can use  lt a href   attachments-31-3d4c8970 zip  download  attachments-31 zip  class  download auto-start  gt direct link lt  a gt

User · Answer

I hate when sites complicate download so much and use hacks instead of a good old link   Dead simple version    lt a href  file zip  gt Start automatic download  lt  a gt    It works  In every browser     If you want to download a file that is usually displayed inline  such as an image  then HTML5 has a download attribute that forces download of the file  It also allows you to override filename  although there is a better way to do it     lt a href  report-generator php  download  result xls  gt Download lt  a gt    Version with a  thanks  page   If you want to display  thanks  after download  then use    lt a href  file zip      onclick  if  event button  0        setTimeout function   document body innerHTML  thanks    500   gt   Start automatic download   lt  a gt    Function in that setTimeout might be more advanced and e g  download full page via AJAX  but don t navigate away from the page      don t touch window location or activate other links       The point is that link to download is real  can be copied  dragged  intercepted by download accelerators  gets  visited color  doesn t re-download if page is left open after browser restart  etc   That s what I use for ImageOptim

User · Answer

SourceForge uses an  lt iframe gt  element with the src    attribute pointing to the file to download    lt iframe width  1  height  1  frameborder  0  src   File location   gt  lt  iframe gt     Side effect  no redirect  no JavaScript  original URL remains unchanged

User · Answer

I had a similar issue and none of the above solutions worked for me  Here s my try  requires jquery      function          a data-auto-download    each function        var  this     this       setTimeout function           window location    this attr  href           2000               Usage  Just add an attribute called data-auto-download to the link pointing to the download in question    lt p gt The download should start shortly  If it doesn t  click  lt a data-auto-download href   your file url  gt here lt  a gt   lt  p gt    It should work in all cases

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