file_saver

FileSaver

Huge Shoutout to all the contributors and the people who are using this package, I'm really grateful to all of you. Thank you for your support.

This plugin package primarily focuses on one task: saving files on Android, iOS, Web, Windows, MacOS, and Linux. It might not have a plethora of features, but it does this job well. This package depends on path_provider for Android and iOS, browser download APIs for Web, and platform file APIs for desktop. The main reason I built this plugin was to avoid using HTML just for downloading files. The plugin is pretty simple and saves the file in Downloads folder in Windows, MacOS, Linux and directly downloads the file in Web, in iOS, the file is Saved in Application Documents Directory, and in Android it is saved in the applications files directory Android/data/your.package.name/file/your_file.extension.

Getting Started

The plugin itself is pretty easy to use. Just call the method saveFile() with respective arguments.

await FileSaver.instance.saveFile({
      required String name,
      Uint8List? bytes,
      File? file,
      String? filePath,
      LinkDetails? link,
      String fileExtension = "",
      bool includeExtension = true,
      MimeType mimeType = MimeType.other,
      String? customMimeType,
      Dio? dioClient,
      Uint8List Function(Uint8List)? transformDioResponse,
});

This saveFile() method has 9 Named arguments.

String name which takes the name of the file,
Uint8List bytes which will be your actual encoded file,
Or
File file which will be your file in the File object (from dart:io)
Or
Stirng filePath which will be your file path
Or
LinkDetails link which will provide the link, header, request methid and body to your file. LinkDetails can be used as

LinkDetails(
      link: "https://www.example.com/file.extentions",
      headers: {"your-header-key": "you-header-value"},
      method: "POST",
      body: body
)

Out of these parameters, you will have to use atleast one

String fileExtension this will be your file extension.
bool includeExtension this controls whether to include the extension in the saved file name. Set to false to save files without extension (e.g., "myfile" instead of "myfile.txt"). Defaults to true.
Another parameter is MimeType type Specifically for Web, which will be your file type

String customMimeType this will be your custom mime type, if you want to use your own mime type, you can use this parameter

Dio dioClient this will be your dio client, if you want to use dio for downloading the file, you can use this parameter

Uint8List Function(Uint8List) transformDioResponse this will be your function to transform the response, if you want to transform the response as per your requirement, you can use this parameter

MimeType is also included in my Package, I've included types for Sheets, Presentation, Word, Plain Text, PDF, MP3, MP4 and many other common formats

or you can call saveAs() available for Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, and Web

await FileSaver.instance.saveAs({
      required String name,
      Uint8List? bytes,
      File? file,
      String? filePath,
      LinkDetails? link,
      String fileExtension = "",
      bool includeExtension = true,
      required MimeType mimeType,
      String? customMimeType,
      Dio? dioClient,
      Uint8List Function(Uint8List)? transformDioResponse,
});

All the parameters in this method is same as the saveFile() method.

For very large direct URL downloads, prefer handing the URL to the browser on web or Android DownloadManager so the app does not fetch the full file into memory:

await FileSaver.instance.downloadLink(
  link: LinkDetails(link: "https://example.com/large-file.zip"),
  name: "large-file.zip",
);

downloadLink is a browser/system handoff. On Web it cannot attach custom headers such as Authorization. Browser-managed cookies may be sent only if the URL and cookie policy allow it. On Android, downloadLink uses DownloadManager and can pass request headers.

For authenticated large downloads on Web, use saveLinkAsStream. It uses fetch, so request headers and browser-managed credentials can be included, then it streams the response into a user-selected file:

await FileSaver.instance.saveLinkAsStream(
  name: "private-export",
  link: LinkDetails(
    link: "https://example.com/private/export.zip",
    headers: {"Authorization": "Bearer token"},
  ),
  fileExtension: "zip",
  includeCredentials: true,
);

This Web path requires the File System Access API and CORS permission from the server. JavaScript cannot manually set the Cookie header; use normal browser session cookies, a signed URL, or an Authorization header instead.

For native platforms, prefer filePath/file or saveAsStream for large generated content so the final save step can stream/copy from disk. On Web, saveAsStream uses the File System Access API where the browser supports it:

await FileSaver.instance.saveAsStream(
  name: "large-export",
  stream: myByteStream,
  fileExtension: "zip",
  mimeType: MimeType.zip,
);

Large files on Web

Web has different behavior depending on where the data comes from:

Use case	Recommended API	Memory behavior	Browser support
Direct public/signed URL	downloadLink	Browser handles the download; the Flutter app does not hold the full file	Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari
Direct URL with request headers	saveLinkAsStream	Fetch streams the response into a user-selected file	Chrome/Edge and other browsers that implement the File System Access API
Already have Uint8List bytes	saveFile / saveAs	Creates a Blob, so the full file is held in browser memory	Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari
App-generated stream	saveAsStream	Writes chunks to a user-selected file without creating a giant Blob	Chrome/Edge and other browsers that implement the File System Access API
Local file path	Not supported on Web	Browsers do not expose real local file paths to web apps	Not available

Firefox/Mozilla and Safari do not currently provide the writable File System Access API needed by saveAsStream. For very large files in those browsers, use downloadLink with a direct server/CDN/S3 URL so the browser download manager streams the file to disk. Avoid passing multi-GB Uint8List values to saveFile/saveAs on Web because that path must create a Blob in memory.

Note: customMimeType can only be used when mimeType is set to MimeType.custom

Usage Examples:

Save file with extension (default behavior):

await FileSaver.instance.saveFile(
  name: "my_document",
  bytes: fileBytes,
  fileExtension: "pdf",
  mimeType: MimeType.pdf,
);
// Saves as: my_document.pdf

Save file without extension:

await FileSaver.instance.saveFile(
  name: "my_document",
  bytes: fileBytes,
  fileExtension: "pdf",
  includeExtension: false,
  mimeType: MimeType.pdf,
);
// Saves as: my_document

Save file from URL without extension:

await FileSaver.instance.saveFile(
  name: "downloaded_file",
  link: LinkDetails(link: "https://example.com/file.pdf"),
  fileExtension: "pdf",
  includeExtension: false,
  mimeType: MimeType.pdf,
);
// Saves as: downloaded_file

Storage Permissions & Network Permissions:

These Settings are optional for iOS, as in iOS the file will be saved in application documents directory but will not be visible in Files application, to make your file visible in iOS Files application, make the changes mentioned below.

iOS:

Go to your project folder, ios/Runner/info.plist and Add these keys:

<key>LSSupportsOpeningDocumentsInPlace</key>
<true/>
<key>UIFileSharingEnabled</key>
<true/>

Or in XCode:

Open Your Project in XCode (Open XCode -> Open a project or file -> Your_Project_Folder/ios/Runner.xcworkspace) Open info.plist Add these rows:

Application supports iTunes file sharing (Boolean -> Yes)

Supports opening documents in place (Boolean -> Yes)

macOS:

Go to your project folder, macOS/Runner/DebugProfile.entitlements

For release you need to open 'YOUR_PROJECT_NAME'Profile.entitlements

and add the following key:

<key>com.apple.security.files.downloads.read-write</key>
<true/>

Or in XCode:

Open Your Project in XCode (Open XCode -> Open a project or file -> Your_Project_Folder/macos/Runner.xcworkspace) Open your entitlement file (DebugProfile.entitlements & 'YOUR_PROJECT_NAME'Profile.entitlements)

Add these rows:

and if you get Client Socket Exception while saving files in MacOS from link, you have to add this key in the DebugProfile.entitlements and Release.entitlements of your macOS application and set the value to true

<key>com.apple.security.network.client</key>
<true/>

You can find these files in the project_folder/macos/Runner/ directory.

And You're done

Thank You For Reading this far :)

Contributors