Download attribute on A tag not working in IE

Question

From the following code I'm creating a dynamic anchor tag which downloads a file. This code works well in Chrome but not in IE. How can I get this working

<div id="divContainer">
    <h3>Sample title</h3>
</div>
<button onclick="clicker()">Click me</button>

<script type="text/javascript">

    function clicker() {
        var anchorTag = document.createElement('a');
        anchorTag.href = "http://cdn1.dailymirror.lk/media/images/finance.jpg";
        anchorTag.download = "download";
        anchorTag.click();


        var element = document.getElementById('divContainer');
        element.appendChild(anchorTag);
    }

</script>

Answer 1

Internet Explorer does not presently support the Download attribute on A tags.

See http://caniuse.com/download and http://status.modern.ie/adownloadattribute; the latter indicates that the feature is "Under consideration" for IE12.

Answer 2

As of build 10547+, the Microsoft Edge browser is now supporting the download attribute on a tags.

<a href="download/image.png" download="file_name.png">Download Image</a>

Edge features update: https://dev.windows.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/platform/changelog/desktop/10547/

a[download] standard: http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/links.html#attr-hyperlink-download

Answer 3

This code fragment allows saving blob in the file in IE, Edge and other modern browsers.

var request = new XMLHttpRequest();
request.onreadystatechange = function() {

    if (request.readyState === 4 && request.status === 200) {

        // Extract filename form response using regex
        var filename = "";
        var disposition = request.getResponseHeader('Content-Disposition');
        if (disposition && disposition.indexOf('attachment') !== -1) {
            var filenameRegex = /filename[^;=\n]*=((['"]).*?\2|[^;\n]*)/;
            var matches = filenameRegex.exec(disposition);
            if (matches != null && matches[1]) filename = matches[1].replace(/['"]/g, '');
        }

        if (window.navigator.msSaveOrOpenBlob) { // for IE and Edge
            window.navigator.msSaveBlob(request.response, filename);
        } else {
            // for modern browsers
            var a = document.createElement('a');
            a.href = window.URL.createObjectURL(request.response);
            a.download = filename;
            a.style.display = 'none';
            document.body.appendChild(a);
            a.click();
        }
    }

    button.disabled = false;
    dragArea.removeAttribute('spinner-visible');
    // spinner.style.display = "none";

};
request.open("POST", "download");
request.responseType = 'blob';
request.send(formData);

For IE and Edge use: msSaveBlob

Answer 4

Old question, but thought I'd add our solution. Here is the code I used on my last project. It's not perfect, but it passed QA in all browsers and IE9+.

downloadCSV(data,fileName){
  var blob = new Blob([data], {type:  "text/plain;charset=utf-8;"});
  var anchor = angular.element('<a/>');

  if (window.navigator.msSaveBlob) { // IE
    window.navigator.msSaveOrOpenBlob(blob, fileName)
  } else if (navigator.userAgent.search("Firefox") !== -1) { // Firefox
    anchor.css({display: 'none'});
    angular.element(document.body).append(anchor);

    anchor.attr({
      href: 'data:attachment/csv;charset=utf-8,' + encodeURIComponent(data),
      target: '_blank',
      download: fileName
    })[0].click();

    anchor.remove();
  } else { // Chrome
    anchor.attr({
      href: URL.createObjectURL(blob),
      target: '_blank',
      download: fileName
    })[0].click();
  }
}

Using the ms specific API worked best for us in IE. Also note that some browsers require the anchor to actually be in the DOM for the download attribute to work, whereas Chrome, for example, does not. Also, we found some inconsistencies with how Blobs work in various browsers. Some browsers also have an export limit. This allows the largest possible CSV export in each browser afaik.

Answer 5

As mentioned in earlier answer , download attribute is not supported in IE . As a work around, you can use iFrames to download the file . Here is a sample code snippet.

function downloadFile(url){
    var oIframe = window.document.createElement('iframe');
    var $body = jQuery(document.body);
    var $oIframe = jQuery(oIframe).attr({
        src: url,
        style: 'display:none'
    });
    $body.append($oIframe);

}

Answer 6

In my case, since there's a requirement to support the usage of IE 11 (version 11.0.9600.18665), I ended up using the solution provided by @Henners on his comment:

// IE10+ : (has Blob, but not a[download] or URL)
if (navigator.msSaveBlob) {
    return navigator.msSaveBlob(blob, fileName);
}

It's quite simple and practical.

Apparently, this solution was found on the Javascript download function created by dandavis.