Overriding the File Name in the Download Dialog The addition of the “download” tag will force a file download dialog box to appear when the link to the file is clicked. The code below will tell the browser to prompt the user to save the file. How to use the Download Attribute to Force a File DownloadĪ special download attribute can be used inside of an tag that will tell the browser to download the file instead of navigating to it.

In many cases, this behavior is undesirable and forces users to right click and select save file as, which isn’t the best user experience, and some users don’t know how to do it.Īs long as you have the ability to edit the HTML code of the page, you can use a simple HTML tweak that will allow you to control when the file download prompt appears if the user clicks a link or a button. The Default Behavior of Mozilla Fire Fox when Clicking a PDF Link

Many browsers such as Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome have the default behavior of viewing the file in the browser window instead of prompting the user to save the file to a location. The most common file types that are affected by this behavior are PDF files and images. In an effort to make modern browsers more user friendly, their developers have started to display content inside the web browser that used to require an additional application to view or a user may want to download instead.

Javascript download link