How to Download Files Using Node.js and Axios

One of the most popular HTTP packages for Node.js is axios, and it's my favorite HTTP client when it comes to making network requests. I have used it many times before making simple requests returning JSON data, but when I used it to download files to my computer for the first time, I struggled a bit. In this post, I will show you how you can download files such as images or videos and store them on your computer.

1. Install the axios package

npm install axios

2. Add the axios GET request

const axios = require("axios");

(async () => {
  const response = await axios.get("https://placekitten.com/200/300");
})();

3. Converting the response to a stream

In order to download the image we will have to modify the response to be of type stream. This can be done by simply adding a second argument to the GET request.

const axios = require("axios");

(async () => {
  const response = await axios.get("https://placekitten.com/200/300", {
    responseType: "stream",
  });
})();

4. Handling the stream

The GET request will now return a stream that we can pipe to a writable stream in order to save the image. In this example we will use the fs package that comes with Node.js which provides a handy function for this. We can simply pipe the stream to fs.createWriteStream specifying where the file should be stored.

const axios = require("axios");
const fs = require("fs");

(async () => {
  const response = await axios.get("https://placekitten.com/200/300", {
    responseType: "stream",
  });

  const stream = response.data.pipe(fs.createWriteStream("kitten.jpeg"));
})();

5. Listening for events

If we would like to know when the file has been downloaded we can listen for the finish event. This will emit once the stream has been written to the disk. If we want to listen for any errors that might occur we can listen for the error event.

const axios = require("axios");
const fs = require("fs");

(async () => {
  const response = await axios.get("https://placekitten.com/200/300", {
    responseType: "stream",
  });

  const stream = response.data.pipe(fs.createWriteStream("kitten.jpeg"));

  stream.on("finish", () => console.log("Image has been downloaded!"));
  stream.on("error", () => console.log("An error occured..."));
})();

Conclusion

Now you know how to download files using Node.js and axios! I hope that you found this guide helpful and that you could incorporate this solution in your project.