Download the contents of a DriveItem

Namespace: microsoft.graph

Download the contents of the primary stream (file) of a driveItem. Only driveItems with the file property can be downloaded.

This API is available in the following national cloud deployments.

Global service	US Government L4	US Government L5 (DOD)	China operated by 21Vianet
✅	✅	✅	✅

Permissions

Choose the permission or permissions marked as least privileged for this API. Use a higher privileged permission or permissions only if your app requires it. For details about delegated and application permissions, see Permission types. To learn more about these permissions, see the permissions reference.

Permission type	Least privileged permissions	Higher privileged permissions
Delegated (work or school account)	Files.Read	Files.ReadWrite, Files.Read.All, Files.ReadWrite.All, Sites.Read.All, Sites.ReadWrite.All
Delegated (personal Microsoft account)	Files.Read	Files.ReadWrite, Files.Read.All, Files.ReadWrite.All
Application	Files.Read.All	Files.ReadWrite.All, Sites.Read.All, Sites.ReadWrite.All

HTTP request

GET /drives/{drive-id}/items/{item-id}/content
GET /groups/{group-id}/drive/items/{item-id}/content
GET /me/drive/root:/{item-path}:/content
GET /me/drive/items/{item-id}/content
GET /shares/{shareIdOrEncodedSharingUrl}/driveItem/content
GET /sites/{siteId}/drive/items/{item-id}/content
GET /users/{userId}/drive/items/{item-id}/content

Request headers

Name	Description
Authorization	Bearer {token}. Required. Learn more about authentication and authorization.
if-none-match	String . If this request header is included and the eTag (or cTag) provided matches the current tag on the file, an HTTP 304 Not Modified response is returned.

Example

Here's an example to download a complete file.

Request

HTTP

GET /me/drive/items/{item-id}/content

C#

// Code snippets are only available for the latest version. Current version is 5.x

// To initialize your graphClient, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/sdks/create-client?from=snippets&tabs=csharp
await graphClient.Drives["{drive-id}"].Items["{driveItem-id}"].Content.GetAsync();

For details about how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance, see the SDK documentation.

CLI

// THE CLI IS IN PREVIEW. NON-PRODUCTION USE ONLY
mgc drives items content get --drive-id {drive-id} --drive-item-id {driveItem-id}

For details about how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance, see the SDK documentation.

Go

import (
	  "context"
	  msgraphsdk "github.com/microsoftgraph/msgraph-sdk-go"
	  //other-imports
)

graphClient := msgraphsdk.NewGraphServiceClientWithCredentials(cred, scopes)



graphClient.Drives().ByDriveId("drive-id").Items().ByDriveItemId("driveItem-id").Content().Get(context.Background(), nil)

For details about how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance, see the SDK documentation.

Java

// Code snippets are only available for the latest version. Current version is 6.x

GraphServiceClient graphClient = new GraphServiceClient(requestAdapter);

graphClient.drives().byDriveId("{drive-id}").items().byDriveItemId("{driveItem-id}").content().get();

For details about how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance, see the SDK documentation.

JavaScript

const options = {
	authProvider,
};

const client = Client.init(options);

let stream = await client.api('/me/drive/items/{item-id}/content')
	.get();

For details about how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance, see the SDK documentation.

PHP

<?php
use Microsoft\Graph\GraphServiceClient;


$graphServiceClient = new GraphServiceClient($tokenRequestContext, $scopes);


$graphServiceClient->drives()->byDriveId('drive-id')->items()->byDriveItemId('driveItem-id')->content()->get()->wait();

For details about how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance, see the SDK documentation.

PowerShell

Import-Module Microsoft.Graph.Files

Get-MgDriveItemContent -DriveId $driveId -DriveItemId $driveItemId

For details about how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance, see the SDK documentation.

Python

from msgraph import GraphServiceClient

graph_client = GraphServiceClient(credentials, scopes)


await graph_client.drives.by_drive_id('drive-id').items.by_drive_item_id('driveItem-id').content.get()

For details about how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance, see the SDK documentation.

Response

Returns a 302 Found response redirecting to a preauthenticated download URL for the file, which is the same URL available through the @microsoft.graph.downloadUrl property on the DriveItem.

To download the contents of the file your application needs to follow the Location header in the response. Many HTTP client libraries will automatically follow the 302 redirection and start downloading the file immediately.

Preauthenticated download URLs are only valid for a short period of time (a few minutes) and don't require an Authorization header to download.

HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Location: https://b0mpua-by3301.files.1drv.com/y23vmagahszhxzlcvhasdhasghasodfi

Downloading files in JavaScript apps

To download files in a JavaScript app, you can't use the /content API, because this responds with a 302 redirect. A 302 redirect is explicitly prohibited when a Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) preflight is required, such as when providing the Authorization header.

Instead, your app needs to select the @microsoft.graph.downloadUrl property, which returns the same URL that /content directs to. This URL can then be requested directly using XMLHttpRequest. Because these URLs are preauthenticated, they can be retrieved without a CORS preflight request.

Example

To retrieve the download URL for a file, first make a request that includes the @microsoft.graph.downloadUrl property:

GET /drive/items/{item-ID}?select=id,@microsoft.graph.downloadUrl

The call returns the ID and download URL for a file:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "id": "12319191!11919",
  "@microsoft.graph.downloadUrl": "https://..."
}

You can then make an XMLHttpRequest for the URL provided in @microsoft.graph.downloadUrl to retrieve the file.

Partial range downloads

To download a partial range of bytes from the file, your app can use the Range header as specified in RFC 2616. You must append the Range header to the actual @microsoft.graph.downloadUrl URL and not to the request for /content.

GET https://b0mpua-by3301.files.1drv.com/y23vmag
Range: bytes=0-1023

The call returns an HTTP 206 Partial Content response with the request range of bytes from the file. If the range can't be generated the Range header may be ignored and an HTTP 200 response would be returned with the full contents of the file.

HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content
Content-Range: bytes 0-1023/2048
Content-Type: application/octet-stream

<first 1024 bytes of file>

Error responses

See Error Responses for more info about how errors are returned.