From the title, it's a silly question.

But let's say I have a URL, and it's either a SWF, a PNG or an MP3 or something. How can I force my browser (in this case I'm using Google Chrome) to download the file, instead of automatically displaying/playing it?

My long & stupid and boring way around this is to create a one line HTM file with a hyperlink inside it pointing to the URL, then right click and save link as. But there has to be a better way to do this. I just can't find it by googling.

Chud37

Posted 2014-03-14T10:16:00.733

Reputation: 384

2If you haven't tried it yet (which you probably have, but I'm including here just in case), Cmd + S works wonders sometimes. I've found that I can save PDFs, MP3s, SWFs, PNGs with it. Not quite automatic, but it works 99% of the time. Sometimes, webpages block Cmd + S, in which case you'll have to go to File > Save Page As... – Caleb Xu – 2015-11-12T06:56:53.313

Can you provide the URL? – Matthew Williams – 2014-03-14T10:22:52.560

Sure, I've got it now, but for testing try this: http://www.oizo3000.com/flash/projetmpc.swf

– Chud37 – 2014-03-14T10:51:32.793

You can't force your browser to download this. The web link points to a file which contains a built in rendering system which displays the content within the page. If you own the website you can change code to do this, but from your end it would have to be a save as job. – Matthew Williams – 2014-03-14T10:56:49.943

1It's absolute rubbish that Chrome doesnt have this feature built in. I should just be able say right click in the url bar and click save as, but instead I have to go a stupid long winded way. I'm still dertermined there's a solution out there. – Chud37 – 2014-03-14T11:42:15.777

There might be. Possibly a plugin, but none that I am aware of. – Matthew Williams – 2014-03-14T11:43:20.853

Answers

Download File from URL

There are a couple ways to do this. As mentioned, using the developer tools could work (more likely it will give you the url to the file) and right-clicking the link will work. Alternatively there are these options.

In Chrome

Go to the URL
Right-click the webpage
Select Save As...

For verification purposes, here are png, jpg, and mp3 links. Follow them and try these steps. However, in my experience. If you already have a url to a file, opening up Chrome and following these steps is rather tedious so here is an alternative.

In Command Line

Open your favorite terminal emulator
type curl -o myfile.mp3 www.foo.com/bar.mp3
- Where myfile.mp3 is what you want to call the file you're downloading
- And www.foo.com/bar.mp3 is the URL to the file

[Note: This works for Linux and Mac users. If you are unfortunate enough to be a Windows user trying to use the cmd line, use Cmder and this method will work or if you're a purist try this]

NonlinearFruit

Posted 2014-03-14T10:16:00.733

Reputation: 738

Curl is also available for Windows (check their download page). I have it installed so I tested your command. It works like a charm! Thanks!

– Stijn de Witt – 2016-09-04T14:53:15.080

Works on .mp4 as well, I believe this works on almost any file type? – Derk Jan Speelman – 2019-04-04T11:15:21.017

For Powershell, this example works great:

invoke-webrequest -uri http://files.animatedsuperheroes.com/themes/spiderman94.mp3 -outfile "c:\Spiderman94.mp3"

This was confirmed with Win10 x64 1607.

semtex41

Posted 2014-03-14T10:16:00.733

Reputation: 945

Obviously not useful for everyone, but if you have a Mac, put the URL into Safari and press Option-Return.

user535673

Posted 2014-03-14T10:16:00.733

Reputation: 169

You can see the files a page loads using Developer Tools. Under the "Sources" tab in Developer Tools you can right-click a file and save it. For example, the webpage http://www.oizo3000.com/flash/projetmpc.swf loads the file "projetmpc.swf".

Curran

Posted 2014-03-14T10:16:00.733

Reputation: 533

This isn't quite what you were looking for but it might might make your life a little easier.

Create a new bookmark in your browser, set the name to "Get Download Link" or what ever else you would like and set the target/location to

javascript:document.body.innerHTML="<a download" + "Click here to Download".link(window.location.href).substring(2);

Whenever you are viewing something you want to download just click that bookmark and it will replace the content with a link to the content. You should be able to click to download, otherwise you can always right click and save like normal.