Spring Boot Resources

Spring Boot - File Handling

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In this chapter, you will learn how to upload and download the file by using web service.

File Upload

For uploading a file, you can use MultipartFile as a Request Parameter and this API should consume Multi-Part form data value. Observe the code given below −

@PostMapping(value = "/upload", consumes = MediaType.MULTIPART_FORM_DATA_VALUE)
public String fileUpload(@RequestParam("file") MultipartFile file) {
   return null;
}

Example - File Handling using Spring Boot

The complete code for the same is given below −

FileUploadController.java

package com.tutorialspoint.demo.controller;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;

import org.springframework.http.MediaType;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.PostMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestParam;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;
import org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile;

@RestController
public class FileUploadController {
   @PostMapping(value = "/upload", consumes = MediaType.MULTIPART_FORM_DATA_VALUE)
   public String fileUpload(@RequestParam("file") MultipartFile file) throws IOException {
      File convertFile = new File("/var/tmp/"+file.getOriginalFilename());
      convertFile.createNewFile();
      FileOutputStream fout = new FileOutputStream(convertFile);
      fout.write(file.getBytes());
      fout.close();
      return "File is upload successfully";
   }
}

File Download

For file download, you should use InputStreamResource for downloading a File. We need to set the HttpHeader Content-Disposition in Response and need to specify the response Media Type of the application.

Note − In the following example, file should be available on the specified path where the application is running.

@GetMapping(value = "/download") 
public ResponseEntity<Object> downloadFile() throws IOException  {
   String filename = "/var/tmp/logo.png";
   File file = new File(filename);
   InputStreamResource resource = new InputStreamResource(new FileInputStream(file));
   HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
      
   headers.add("Content-Disposition", String.format("attachment; filename=\"%s\"", file.getName()));
   headers.add("Cache-Control", "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate");
   headers.add("Pragma", "no-cache");
   headers.add("Expires", "0");
      
   ResponseEntity<Object> 
   responseEntity = ResponseEntity.ok().headers(headers).contentLength(file.length()).contentType(
      MediaType.parseMediaType("application/txt")).body(resource);
      
   return responseEntity;
}

The complete code for the same is given below −

FileDownloadController.java

package com.tutorialspoint.demo.controller;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;

import org.springframework.core.io.InputStreamResource;
import org.springframework.http.HttpHeaders;
import org.springframework.http.MediaType;
import org.springframework.http.ResponseEntity;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

@RestController
public class FileDownloadController {
   @RequestMapping(value = "/download", method = RequestMethod.GET) 
   public ResponseEntity<Object> downloadFile() throws IOException  {
      String filename = "/var/tmp/logo.png";
      File file = new File(filename);
      InputStreamResource resource = new InputStreamResource(new FileInputStream(file));
      HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
      
      headers.add("Content-Disposition", String.format("attachment; filename=\"%s\"", file.getName()));
      headers.add("Cache-Control", "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate");
      headers.add("Pragma", "no-cache");
      headers.add("Expires", "0");
      
      ResponseEntity<Object> 
      responseEntity = ResponseEntity.ok().headers(headers).contentLength(
         file.length()).contentType(MediaType.parseMediaType("application/txt")).body(resource);
      
      return responseEntity;
   }
}

The main Spring Boot application is given below −

DemoApplication.java

package com.tutorialspoint.demo;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

@SpringBootApplication
public class DemoApplication {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      SpringApplication.run(DemoApplication.class, args);
   }
}

The code for Maven build pom.xml is given below −

pom.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
   <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
   <parent>
      <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
      <version>3.5.6</version>
      <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
   </parent>
   <groupId>com.tutorialspoint</groupId>
   <artifactId>demo</artifactId>
   <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
   <name>demo</name>
   <description>Demo project for Spring Boot</description>
   <url/>
   <licenses>
      <license/>
   </licenses>
   <developers>
      <developer/>
   </developers>
   <scm>
      <connection/>
      <developerConnection/>
      <tag/>
      <url/>
   </scm>
   <properties>
      <java.version>21</java.version>
   </properties>
   <dependencies>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
         <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
      </dependency>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
         <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
         <scope>test</scope>
      </dependency>
   </dependencies>
   <build>
      <plugins>
         <plugin>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
         </plugin>
      </plugins>
   </build>
</project>

The code for Gradle Build build.gradle is given below −

build.gradle

buildscript {
   ext {
      springBootVersion = '3.5.6'
   }
   repositories {
      mavenCentral()
   }
   dependencies {
      classpath("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-gradle-plugin:${springBootVersion}")
   }
}

apply plugin: 'java'
apply plugin: 'eclipse'
apply plugin: 'org.springframework.boot'

group = 'com.tutorialspoint'
version = '0.0.1-SNAPSHOT'
sourceCompatibility = 21

repositories {
   mavenCentral()
}
dependencies {
   compile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web')
   testCompile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test')
}

Now you can create an executable JAR file, and run the Spring Boot application by using the Maven or Gradle commands given below −

For Maven, use the command given below −

mvn clean install

After BUILD SUCCESS, you can find the JAR file under target directory.

For Gradle, you ca use the command shown below −

sgradle clean build

After BUILD SUCCESSFUL, you can find the JAR file under build/libs directory.

Now, run the JAR file by using the following command −

java jar <JARFILE>

This will start the application on the Tomcat port 8080 as shown below −


  .   ____          _            __ _ _
 /\\ / ___'_ __ _ _(_)_ __  __ _ \ \ \ \
( ( )\___ | '_ | '_| | '_ \/ _` | \ \ \ \
 \\/  ___)| |_)| | | | | || (_| |  ) ) ) )
  '  |____| .__|_| |_|_| |_\__, | / / / /
 =========|_|==============|___/=/_/_/_/

 :: Spring Boot ::                (v3.5.6)

[2025-09-28T16:51:35Z] [org.springframework.boot.StartupInfoLogger] [main] [53] [INFO ] Starting DemoApplication using Java 21.0.6 with PID 43928 (D:\Projects\demo\target\classes started by mahes in D:\Projects\demo)
[2025-09-28T16:51:35Z] [org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication] [main] [652] [INFO ] No active profile set, falling back to 1 default profile: "default"
[2025-09-28T16:51:37Z] [org.springframework.boot.web.embedded.tomcat.TomcatWebServer] [main] [111] [INFO ] Tomcat initialized with port 8080 (http)
[2025-09-28T16:51:37Z] [org.apache.juli.logging.DirectJDKLog] [main] [168] [INFO ] Initializing ProtocolHandler ["http-nio-8080"]
[2025-09-28T16:51:37Z] [org.apache.juli.logging.DirectJDKLog] [main] [168] [INFO ] Starting service [Tomcat]
[2025-09-28T16:51:37Z] [org.apache.juli.logging.DirectJDKLog] [main] [168] [INFO ] Starting Servlet engine: [Apache Tomcat/10.1.46]
[2025-09-28T16:51:37Z] [org.apache.juli.logging.DirectJDKLog] [main] [168] [INFO ] Initializing Spring embedded WebApplicationContext
[2025-09-28T16:51:37Z] [org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.context.ServletWebServerApplicationContext] [main] [301] [INFO ] Root WebApplicationContext: initialization completed in 1269 ms
[2025-09-28T16:51:37Z] [org.apache.juli.logging.DirectJDKLog] [main] [168] [INFO ] Starting ProtocolHandler ["http-nio-8080"]
[2025-09-28T16:51:37Z] [org.springframework.boot.web.embedded.tomcat.TomcatWebServer] [main] [243] [INFO ] Tomcat started on port 8080 (http) with context path '/'
[2025-09-28T16:51:37Z] [org.springframework.boot.StartupInfoLogger] [main] [59] [INFO ] Started DemoApplication in 2.271 seconds (process running for 2.796)

Now hit the below URLs in POSTMAN application and you can see the output as shown below −

File download − http://localhost:8080/download

File Download

File upload − http://localhost:8080/upload

POSTMAN application File Upload
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