How can I download and save a file from the Internet using Java?

There is an online file (such as http://www.example.com/information.asp) I need to grab and save to a directory. I know there are several methods for grabbing and reading online files (URLs) line-by-line, but is there a way to just download and save the file using Java?

Give Java NIO a try:

URL website = new URL("http://www.website.com/information.asp");
ReadableByteChannel rbc = Channels.newChannel(website.openStream());
FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream("information.html");
fos.getChannel().transferFrom(rbc, 0, Long.MAX_VALUE);

Using transferFrom() is potentially much more efficient than a simple loop that reads from the source channel and writes to this channel. Many operating systems can transfer bytes directly from the source channel into the filesystem cache without actually copying them.

Check more about it here.

Note: The third parameter in transferFrom is the maximum number of bytes to transfer. Integer.MAX_VALUE will transfer at most 2^31 bytes, Long.MAX_VALUE will allow at most 2^63 bytes (larger than any file in existence).

Use Apache Commons IO. It is just one line of code:

FileUtils.copyURLToFile(URL, File)

Simpler non-blocking I/O usage:

URL website = new URL("http://www.website.com/information.asp");
try (InputStream in = website.openStream()) {
    Files.copy(in, target, StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING);
}

public void saveUrl(final String filename, final String urlString)
        throws MalformedURLException, IOException {
    BufferedInputStream in = null;
    FileOutputStream fout = null;
    try {
        in = new BufferedInputStream(new URL(urlString).openStream());
        fout = new FileOutputStream(filename);

        final byte data[] = new byte[1024];
        int count;
        while ((count = in.read(data, 0, 1024)) != -1) {
            fout.write(data, 0, count);
        }
    } finally {
        if (in != null) {
            in.close();
        }
        if (fout != null) {
            fout.close();
        }
    }
}

You'll need to handle exceptions, probably external to this method.

Here is a concise, readable, JDK-only solution with properly closed resources:

static long download(String url, String fileName) throws IOException {
    try (InputStream in = URI.create(url).toURL().openStream()) {
        return Files.copy(in, Paths.get(fileName));
    }
}

Two lines of code and no dependencies.

Here's a complete file downloader example program with output, error checking, and command line argument checks:

package so.downloader;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.net.URI;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Paths;

public class Application {
	public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
		if (2 != args.length) {
			System.out.println("USAGE: java -jar so-downloader.jar <source-URL> <target-filename>");
			System.exit(1);
		}

		String sourceUrl = args[0];
		String targetFilename = args[1];

		long bytesDownloaded = download(sourceUrl, targetFilename);

		System.out.println(String.format("Downloaded %d bytes from %s to %s.", bytesDownloaded, sourceUrl, targetFilename));
	}

	static long download(String url, String fileName) throws IOException {
	    try (InputStream in = URI.create(url).toURL().openStream()) {
	        return Files.copy(in, Paths.get(fileName));
	    }
	}    
}

As noted in the so-downloader repository README:

To run file download program:

java -jar so-downloader.jar <source-URL> <target-filename>

For example:

java -jar so-downloader.jar https://github.com/JanStureNielsen/so-downloader/archive/main.zip so-downloader-source.zip

Downloading a file requires you to read it. Either way, you will have to go through the file in some way. Instead of line by line, you can just read it by bytes from the stream:

BufferedInputStream in = new BufferedInputStream(new URL("http://www.website.com/information.asp").openStream())
byte data[] = new byte[1024];
int count;
while((count = in.read(data, 0, 1024)) != -1)
{
    out.write(data, 0, count);
}

This answer is almost exactly like the selected answer, but with two enhancements: it's a method and it closes out the FileOutputStream object:

    public static void downloadFileFromURL(String urlString, File destination) {
        try {
            URL website = new URL(urlString);
            ReadableByteChannel rbc;
            rbc = Channels.newChannel(website.openStream());
            FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(destination);
            fos.getChannel().transferFrom(rbc, 0, Long.MAX_VALUE);
            fos.close();
            rbc.close();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

When using Java 7+, use the following method to download a file from the Internet and save it to some directory:

private static Path download(String sourceURL, String targetDirectory) throws IOException
{
    URL url = new URL(sourceURL);
    String fileName = sourceURL.substring(sourceURL.lastIndexOf('/') + 1, sourceURL.length());
    Path targetPath = new File(targetDirectory + File.separator + fileName).toPath();
    Files.copy(url.openStream(), targetPath, StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING);

    return targetPath;
}

Documentation is here.

import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;

public class filedown {
	public static void download(String address, String localFileName) {
		OutputStream out = null;
		URLConnection conn = null;
		InputStream in = null;
		
		try {
			URL url = new URL(address);
			out = new BufferedOutputStream(new FileOutputStream(localFileName));
			conn = url.openConnection();
			in = conn.getInputStream();
			byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
			
			int numRead;
			long numWritten = 0;
			
			while ((numRead = in.read(buffer)) != -1) {
				out.write(buffer, 0, numRead);
				numWritten += numRead;
			}
			
			System.out.println(localFileName + "\t" + numWritten);
		} 
		catch (Exception exception) { 
			exception.printStackTrace();
		} 
		finally {
			try {
				if (in != null) {
					in.close();
				}
				if (out != null) {
					out.close();
				}
			} 
			catch (IOException ioe) {
			}
		}
	}

	public static void download(String address) {
		int lastSlashIndex = address.lastIndexOf('/');
		if (lastSlashIndex >= 0 &&
		lastSlashIndex < address.length() - 1) {
			download(address, (new URL(address)).getFile());
		} 
		else {
			System.err.println("Could not figure out local file name for "+address);
		}
	}

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		for (int i = 0; i < args.length; i++) {
			download(args[i]);
		}
	}
}

Personally, I've found Apache's HttpClient to be more than capable of everything I've needed to do with regards to this. Here is a great tutorial on using HttpClient

This is another Java 7 variant based on Brian Risk's answer with usage of a try-with statement:

public static void downloadFileFromURL(String urlString, File destination) throws Throwable {

    URL website = new URL(urlString);
    try(
        ReadableByteChannel rbc = Channels.newChannel(website.openStream());
        FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(destination);
       ) {

        fos.getChannel().transferFrom(rbc, 0, Long.MAX_VALUE);
    }
}

It's possible to download the file with with Apache's HttpComponents instead of Commons IO. This code allows you to download a file in Java according to its URL and save it at the specific destination.

public static boolean saveFile(URL fileURL, String fileSavePath) {

    boolean isSucceed = true;

    CloseableHttpClient httpClient = HttpClients.createDefault();

    HttpGet httpGet = new HttpGet(fileURL.toString());
    httpGet.addHeader("User-Agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:34.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/34.0");
    httpGet.addHeader("Referer", "https://www.google.com");

    try {
        CloseableHttpResponse httpResponse = httpClient.execute(httpGet);
        HttpEntity fileEntity = httpResponse.getEntity();

        if (fileEntity != null) {
            FileUtils.copyInputStreamToFile(fileEntity.getContent(), new File(fileSavePath));
        }

    } catch (IOException e) {
        isSucceed = false;
    }

    httpGet.releaseConnection();

    return isSucceed;
}

In contrast to the single line of code:

FileUtils.copyURLToFile(fileURL, new File(fileSavePath),
                        URLS_FETCH_TIMEOUT, URLS_FETCH_TIMEOUT);

This code will give you more control over a process and let you specify not only time-outs, but User-Agent and Referer values, which are critical for many websites.

There are many elegant and efficient answers here. But the conciseness can make us lose some useful information. In particular, one often does not want to consider a connection error an Exception, and one might want to treat differently some kind of network-related errors - for example, to decide if we should retry the download.

Here's a method that does not throw Exceptions for network errors (only for truly exceptional problems, as malformed url or problems writing to the file)

/**
 * Downloads from a (http/https) URL and saves to a file. 
 * Does not consider a connection error an Exception. Instead it returns:
 *  
 *    0=ok  
 *    1=connection interrupted, timeout (but something was read)
 *    2=not found (FileNotFoundException) (404) 
 *    3=server error (500...) 
 *    4=could not connect: connection timeout (no internet?) java.net.SocketTimeoutException
 *    5=could not connect: (server down?) java.net.ConnectException
 *    6=could not resolve host (bad host, or no internet - no dns)
 * 
 * @param file File to write. Parent directory will be created if necessary
 * @param url  http/https url to connect
 * @param secsConnectTimeout Seconds to wait for connection establishment
 * @param secsReadTimeout Read timeout in seconds - trasmission will abort if it freezes more than this 
 * @return See above
 * @throws IOException Only if URL is malformed or if could not create the file
 */
public static int saveUrl(final Path file, final URL url, 
  int secsConnectTimeout, int secsReadTimeout) throws IOException {
	Files.createDirectories(file.getParent()); // make sure parent dir exists , this can throw exception
	URLConnection conn = url.openConnection(); // can throw exception if bad url
	if( secsConnectTimeout > 0 ) conn.setConnectTimeout(secsConnectTimeout * 1000);
	if( secsReadTimeout > 0 ) conn.setReadTimeout(secsReadTimeout * 1000);
	int ret = 0;
	boolean somethingRead = false;
	try (InputStream is = conn.getInputStream()) {
		try (BufferedInputStream in = new BufferedInputStream(is); OutputStream fout = Files
				.newOutputStream(file)) {
			final byte data[] = new byte[8192];
			int count;
			while((count = in.read(data)) > 0) {
				somethingRead = true;
				fout.write(data, 0, count);
			}
		}
	} catch(java.io.IOException e) { 
		int httpcode = 999;
		try {
			httpcode = ((HttpURLConnection) conn).getResponseCode();
		} catch(Exception ee) {}
		if( somethingRead && e instanceof java.net.SocketTimeoutException ) ret = 1;
		else if( e instanceof FileNotFoundException && httpcode >= 400 && httpcode < 500 ) ret = 2; 
		else if( httpcode >= 400 && httpcode < 600 ) ret = 3; 
		else if( e instanceof java.net.SocketTimeoutException ) ret = 4; 
		else if( e instanceof java.net.ConnectException ) ret = 5; 
		else if( e instanceof java.net.UnknownHostException ) ret = 6;  
		else throw e;
	}
	return ret;
}

There is a method, U.fetch(url), in the underscore-java library.

File pom.xml:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.github.javadev</groupId>
  <artifactId>underscore</artifactId>
  <version>1.74</version>
</dependency>

Code example:

import com.github.underscore.U;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Paths;

public class Download {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        Files.write(Paths.get("data.bin"),
            U.fetch("https://stackoverflow.com/questions"
                + "/921262/how-to-download-and-save-a-file-from-internet-using-java").blob());
    }
}

To summarize (and somehow polish and update) previous answers. The three following methods are practically equivalent. (I added explicit timeouts, because I think they are a must. Nobody wants a download to freeze forever when the connection is lost.)

public static void saveUrl1(final Path file, final URL url,
    int secsConnectTimeout, int secsReadTimeout))
    throws MalformedURLException, IOException {

    // Files.createDirectories(file.getParent()); // Optional, make sure parent directory exists
    try (BufferedInputStream in = new BufferedInputStream(
         streamFromUrl(url, secsConnectTimeout,secsReadTimeout));
         OutputStream fout = Files.newOutputStream(file)) {

            final byte data[] = new byte[8192];
            int count;
            while((count = in.read(data)) > 0)
                fout.write(data, 0, count);
        }
}

public static void saveUrl2(final Path file, final URL url,
    int secsConnectTimeout, int secsReadTimeout))
    throws MalformedURLException, IOException {

    // Files.createDirectories(file.getParent()); // Optional, make sure parent directory exists
    try (ReadableByteChannel rbc = Channels.newChannel(
             streamFromUrl(url, secsConnectTimeout, secsReadTimeout)
        );
        FileChannel channel = FileChannel.open(file,
             StandardOpenOption.CREATE,
             StandardOpenOption.TRUNCATE_EXISTING,
             StandardOpenOption.WRITE)
        ) {

        channel.transferFrom(rbc, 0, Long.MAX_VALUE);
    }
}

public static void saveUrl3(final Path file, final URL url,
    int secsConnectTimeout, int secsReadTimeout))
    throws MalformedURLException, IOException {

    // Files.createDirectories(file.getParent()); // Optional, make sure parent directory exists
    try (InputStream in = streamFromUrl(url, secsConnectTimeout,secsReadTimeout) ) {
        Files.copy(in, file, StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING);
    }
}

public static InputStream streamFromUrl(URL url,int secsConnectTimeout,int secsReadTimeout) throws IOException {
    URLConnection conn = url.openConnection();
    if(secsConnectTimeout>0)
        conn.setConnectTimeout(secsConnectTimeout*1000);
    if(secsReadTimeout>0)
        conn.setReadTimeout(secsReadTimeout*1000);
    return conn.getInputStream();
}

I don't find significant differences, and all seem right to me. They are safe and efficient. (Differences in speed seem hardly relevant - I write 180 MB from the local server to a SSD disk in times that fluctuate around 1.2 to 1.5 secs). They don't require external libraries. All work with arbitrary sizes and (to my experience) HTTP redirections.

Additionally, all throw FileNotFoundException if the resource is not found (error 404, typically), and java.net.UnknownHostException if the DNS resolution failed; other IOException correspond to errors during transmission.

Below is the sample code to download a movie from the Internet with Java code:

URL url = new
URL("http://103.66.178.220/ftp/HDD2/Hindi%20Movies/2018/Hichki%202018.mkv");
    BufferedInputStream bufferedInputStream = new  BufferedInputStream(url.openStream());
    FileOutputStream stream = new FileOutputStream("/home/sachin/Desktop/test.mkv");

    int count = 0;
    byte[] b1 = new byte[100];

    while((count = bufferedInputStream.read(b1)) != -1) {
        System.out.println("b1:" + b1 + ">>" + count + ">> KB downloaded:" + new File("/home/sachin/Desktop/test.mkv").length()/1024);
        stream.write(b1, 0, count);
    }

There is an issue with simple usage of:

org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils.copyURLToFile(URL, File)

if you need to download and save very large files, or in general if you need automatic retries in case connection is dropped.

I suggest Apache HttpClient in such cases, along with org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils. For example:

GetMethod method = new GetMethod(resource_url);
try {
    int statusCode = client.executeMethod(method);
    if (statusCode != HttpStatus.SC_OK) {
        logger.error("Get method failed: " + method.getStatusLine());
    }
    org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils.copyInputStreamToFile(
        method.getResponseBodyAsStream(), new File(resource_file));
    } catch (HttpException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } finally {
    method.releaseConnection();
}

You can do this in one line using netloader for Java:

new NetFile(new File("my/zips/1.zip"), "https://example.com/example.zip", -1).load(); // Returns true if succeed, otherwise false.

This can read a file on the Internet and write it into a file.

import java.net.URL;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.File;

public class Download {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
         URL url = new URL("https://www.google.com/images/branding/googlelogo/1x/googlelogo_color_272x92dp.png");  // Input URL
         FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(new File("out.png"));  // Output file
         out.write(url.openStream().readAllBytes());
         out.close();
    }
}

Solution on java.net.http.HttpClient using Authorization:

HttpClient client = HttpClient.newHttpClient();

HttpRequest request = HttpRequest.newBuilder()
        .GET()
        .header("Accept", "application/json")
        // .header("Authorization", "Basic ci5raG9kemhhZXY6NDdiYdfjlmNUM=") if you need
        .uri(URI.create("https://jira.google.ru/secure/attachment/234096/screenshot-1.png"))
        .build();

HttpResponse<InputStream> response = client.send(request, HttpResponse.BodyHandlers.ofInputStream());

try (InputStream in = response.body()) {
    Files.copy(in, Paths.get(target + "screenshot-1.png"), StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING);
}

If you are behind a proxy, you can set the proxies in the Java program as below:

Properties systemSettings = System.getProperties();
systemSettings.put("proxySet", "true");
systemSettings.put("https.proxyHost", "HTTPS proxy of your org");
systemSettings.put("https.proxyPort", "8080");

If you are not behind a proxy, don't include the lines above in your code. Full working code to download a file when you are behind a proxy.

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
    String url = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bpjoshi/fxservice/master/src/test/java/com/bpjoshi/fxservice/api/TradeControllerTest.java";
    OutputStream outStream = null;
    URLConnection connection = null;
    InputStream is = null;
    File targetFile = null;
    URL server = null;

    // Setting up proxies
    Properties systemSettings = System.getProperties();
        systemSettings.put("proxySet", "true");
        systemSettings.put("https.proxyHost", "HTTPS proxy of my organisation");
        systemSettings.put("https.proxyPort", "8080");
        // The same way we could also set proxy for HTTP
        System.setProperty("java.net.useSystemProxies", "true");
        // Code to fetch file
    try {
        server = new URL(url);
        connection = server.openConnection();
        is = connection.getInputStream();
        byte[] buffer = new byte[is.available()];
        is.read(buffer);

        targetFile = new File("src/main/resources/targetFile.java");
        outStream = new FileOutputStream(targetFile);
        outStream.write(buffer);
    } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
        System.out.println("THE URL IS NOT CORRECT ");
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        System.out.println("I/O exception");
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    finally{
        if(outStream != null)
            outStream.close();
    }
}

First method using the new channel

ReadableByteChannel aq = Channels.newChannel(new url("https//asd/abc.txt").openStream());
FileOutputStream fileOS = new FileOutputStream("C:Users/local/abc.txt")
FileChannel writech = fileOS.getChannel();

Second method using FileUtils

FileUtils.copyURLToFile(new url("https//asd/abc.txt", new local file on system("C":/Users/system/abc.txt"));

Third method using

InputStream xy = new ("https//asd/abc.txt").openStream();

This is how we can download file by using basic Java code and other third-party libraries. These are just for quick reference. Please google with the above keywords to get detailed information and other options.

public class DownloadManager {
	
	static String urls = "[WEBSITE NAME]";

	public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException{
		URL url = verify(urls);
		HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
		InputStream in = null;
		String filename = url.getFile();
		filename = filename.substring(filename.lastIndexOf('/') + 1);
		FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream("C:\\Java2_programiranje/Network/DownloadTest1/Project/Output" + File.separator + filename);
		in = connection.getInputStream();
		int read = -1;
		byte[] buffer = new byte[4096];
		while((read = in.read(buffer)) != -1){
			out.write(buffer, 0, read);
			System.out.println("[SYSTEM/INFO]: Downloading file...");
		}
		in.close();
		out.close();
		System.out.println("[SYSTEM/INFO]: File Downloaded!");
	}
	private static URL verify(String url){
		if(!url.toLowerCase().startsWith("http://")) {
			return null;
		}
		URL verifyUrl = null;
		
		try{
			verifyUrl = new URL(url);
		}catch(Exception e){
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
		return verifyUrl;
	}
}