How Do I Force a File to Download from the Web?

Dropbox is a popular cloud storage service which helps you to backup photos, videos & documents from your computer and mobile devices to an online storage space. You can easily download photos from Dropbox to computer with simple steps. When you click "Download" button, your browser prompts you to save .zip file, then click "Save" and specify a location to download. The downloaded zip file will contain file from the Dropbox. You can also force a file to download from the web rather than display it. You can make few simple modifications to Dropbox share link URLs to make sure that browsers can handle your Dropbox links in the way you want.

Render a file in your browser:

To bypass the preview page and allow your browser to directly render your files, use raw=1 as a query parameter in your URL.

For example:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qmocfrco2t0d28o/Fluffbeast.docx

Becomes:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qmocfrco2t0d28o/Fluffbeast.docx?raw=1

This URL will cause an HTTP redirect. If you are an app developer and using a URL in your code, then make sure that your app can follow redirects.

Force a File or Folder to Download:

To download a file or folder from the web browser, you can use dl=1 as a query parameter in your URL.

For example:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qmocfrco2t0d28o/Fluffbeast.docx?dl=1

The original share link URl may contain query string parameters already (e.g. d1=0). If you are an app developer, then make sure to properly parse the URl and add / modify parameters as needed.

You can install PicBackMan's Dropbox uploader for Mac from the website and start backing up photos and videos.

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