Download a string as .txt file in React

Question

Here’s a working example. Enter the text in the input field and click Download txt, this will download a txt with the contents you entered in the input.

This solution creates a new Blob object of the text MIME type and attaches it to the href of a temporary anchor (<a>) element which is then triggered programmatically.

A Blob object represents a file-like object of immutable, raw data. Blobs represent data that isn’t necessarily in a JavaScript-native format.

class MyApp extends React.Component {
  downloadTxtFile = () => {
    const element = document.createElement("a");
    const file = new Blob([document.getElementById('myInput').value], {type: 'text/plain'});
    element.href = URL.createObjectURL(file);
    element.download = "myFile.txt";
    document.body.appendChild(element); // Required for this to work in FireFox
    element.click();
  }
  
  render() {
    return (
      <div>
        <input id="myInput" />
        <button onClick={this.downloadTxtFile}>Download txt</button>
      </div>
    );
  }
}

ReactDOM.render(<MyApp />, document.getElementById("myApp"));

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/15.1.0/react.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/15.1.0/react-dom.min.js"></script>
<div id="myApp"></div>

This answer was derived from thanhpk’s post.

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