Having Django Serve Downloadable Files

Having Django serve downloadable files

For the "best of both worlds" you could combine S.Lott's solution with the xsendfile module: django generates the path to the file (or the file itself), but the actual file serving is handled by Apache/Lighttpd. Once you've set up mod_xsendfile, integrating with your view takes a few lines of code:

from django.utils.encoding import smart_str

response = HttpResponse(mimetype='application/force-download') # mimetype is replaced by content_type for django 1.7
response['Content-Disposition'] = 'attachment; filename=%s' % smart_str(file_name)
response['X-Sendfile'] = smart_str(path_to_file)
# It's usually a good idea to set the 'Content-Length' header too.
# You can also set any other required headers: Cache-Control, etc.
return response

Of course, this will only work if you have control over your server, or your hosting company has mod_xsendfile already set up.

EDIT:

mimetype is replaced by content_type for django 1.7

response = HttpResponse(content_type='application/force-download')  

EDIT:
For nginx check this, it uses X-Accel-Redirect instead of apache X-Sendfile header.

Serve a file for download with Django

You want to set the Content-disposition header to "attachment" (and set the proper content-type too - from the var names I assume those files are android packages, else replace with the proper content type):

response = HttpResponse(fh, content_type="application/vnd.android.package-archive") 
response["Content-disposition"] = "attachment; filename={}".format(os.path.basename(path_to_apk))
return response

Django Serving a Download File

Have you considered just sending p.body through the response like this:

response = HttpResponse(mimetype='text/plain')
response['Content-Disposition'] = 'attachment; filename="%s.txt"' % p.uuid
response.write(p.body)

Django download a file

You missed underscore in argument document_root. But it's bad idea to use serve in production. Use something like this instead:

import os
from django.conf import settings
from django.http import HttpResponse, Http404

def download(request, path):
    file_path = os.path.join(settings.MEDIA_ROOT, path)
    if os.path.exists(file_path):
        with open(file_path, 'rb') as fh:
            response = HttpResponse(fh.read(), content_type="application/vnd.ms-excel")
            response['Content-Disposition'] = 'inline; filename=' + os.path.basename(file_path)
            return response
    raise Http404

How can I return a downloadable file Django

a tag has one not so well-known attribute called: download:

<a href="{% url 'my_file_link' %}" download>download the file</a>
                                   ^ here

other way is to send header Content-disposition: "attachment" from server. If you are serving static files via Django (you probably shouldnt), do it in your view where you're composing the response. If you are serving the files from your webserver directly, here's an example for Nginx:

location /media {
    access_log off;
    root /var/www/project/media;

    location /media/downloads/ {
        # add the "force download" header for files in this directory
        add_header Content-disposition "attachment";
    }
} 

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