Do I need Content-Type: application/octet-stream for file download?

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Hence:

Content-Type: application/octet-stream
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="picture.png"

Means "I don't know what the hell this is. Please save it as a file, preferably named picture.png".

Content-Type: image/png
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="picture.png"

Means "This is a PNG image. Please save it as a file, preferably named picture.png".

Content-Type: image/png
Content-Disposition: inline; filename="picture.png"

Means "This is a PNG image. Please display it unless you don't know how to display PNG images. Otherwise, or if the user chooses to save it, we recommend the name picture.png for the file you save it as".

Of those browsers that recognise inline some would always use it, while others would use it if the user had selected "save link as" but not if they'd selected "save" while viewing (or at least IE used to be like that, it may have changed some years ago).

Download a file from NodeJS Server using Express

Source:

Update

Express has a helper for this to make life easier.

app.get('/download', function(req, res){
  const file = `${__dirname}/upload-folder/dramaticpenguin.MOV`;
  res.download(file); // Set disposition and send it.
});

Old Answer

As far as your browser is concerned, the file's name is just 'download', so you need to give it more info by using another HTTP header.

res.setHeader('Content-disposition', 'attachment; filename=dramaticpenguin.MOV');

You may also want to send a mime-type such as this:

res.setHeader('Content-type', 'video/quicktime');

If you want something more in-depth, here ya go.

var path = require('path');
var mime = require('mime');
var fs = require('fs');

app.get('/download', function(req, res){

  var file = __dirname + '/upload-folder/dramaticpenguin.MOV';

  var filename = path.basename(file);
  var mimetype = mime.lookup(file);

  res.setHeader('Content-disposition', 'attachment; filename=' + filename);
  res.setHeader('Content-type', mimetype);

  var filestream = fs.createReadStream(file);
  filestream.pipe(res);
});

You can set the header value to whatever you like. In this case, I am using a mime-type library - node-mime, to check what the mime-type of the file is.

Another important thing to note here is that I have changed your code to use a readStream. This is a much better way to do things because using any method with 'Sync' in the name is frowned upon because node is meant to be asynchronous.