PowerShell Core download file using the URL/headers file name

Question

There's a few questions floating around for how to download files with PowerShell. I'm using PowerShell Core, so I cannot use my favorite method anymore: Start-BitsTransfer.

I see this recommended:

Invoke-WebRequest URL -OutFile c:\file.ext

However it seems suboptimal to have to give the file name. Can PowerShell/iwr guess the file name based on the URL path or the response headers?

I tried Invoke-WebRequest URL alone, but that doesn't store the file at all. From reading the docs it looks like there may be no option for that, is that correct? Is there a different one-liner in PowerShell to download a file using its original file name?

Does this answer your question? PowerShell Invoke-WebRequest, how to automatically use original file name? — Theo
– Theo, Commented Dec 6, 2019 at 19:30

codewario · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-06 20:33:20Z

2

There is not a switch for Invoke-WebRequest. The following code will work, however, to extract the name from the filepath in a single line:

Invoke-WebRequest $URL -OutFile "C:\$(Split-Path -Leaf $URL)"

Split-Path will take a path and return either the full path to the parent container with -Parent argument, or the name of the file/directory at the end with the -Leaf argument.

However, this only works if the filename is part of the URL. If you, for example, have something like http://server.domain.tld/download.php?id=12345, the output file would end up being download.php?id=12345. It's not a one liner, but @Theo shared an answer in his comment that defines a function to get the redirected URL. You can then use Split-Path -Leaf on that redirected URL to get the desired filename.

edited Dec 6, 2019 at 20:33

answered Dec 6, 2019 at 19:00

codewario

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3 Comments

Tomáš Hübelbauer Over a year ago

Unfortunate, thanks for the answer. PowerShell seems to have a good number of really head-scratching omissions/oddities which really grind my gears.

codewario Over a year ago

Eh, IMO this is a minor inconvenience to have to name the file. I agree it would be nice if it could try guessing the name but in most cases (for me) I end up giving files specific names for the sake of idempotency.

Michael Altfield Over a year ago

WARNING: If you don't trim() the trailing newline from the Split-Path subcommand, it could cause a Illegal characters in path error from Invoke-WebRequest. For more info, see Invoke-WebRequest Error: "Illegal characters in path" when using OutFile Split-Path

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