<input type="file">

<input> elements with type="file" let the user choose one or more files from their device storage. Once chosen, the files can be uploaded

to a server using form submission, or manipulated using JavaScript code and the File API.
Try it
HTML Demo: <input type="file"> RESET

HTML CSS
1 <label for="avatar">Choose a profile picture:</label>

2 <input type="file"
3 id="avatar" name="avatar"
4 accept="image/png, image/jpeg">
5
6

OUTPUT
Choose a profile picture:
Choose file No file chosen

Value
A file input's value attribute contains a string that represents the path to the selected file(s). If no file is selected yet, the value is an empty
string ( "" ). When the user selected multiple files, the value represents the first file in the list of files they selected. The other files can be
identified using the input's HTMLInputElement.files property.

Note: The value is always the file's name prefixed with C:\fakepath\ , which isn't the real path of the file. This is to prevent
malicious software from guessing the user's file structure.

Additional attributes
In addition to the common attributes shared by all <input> elements, inputs of type file also support the following attributes.
accept
The accept attribute value is a string that defines the file types the file input should accept. This string is a comma-separated list of unique
file type specifiers. Because a given file type may be identified in more than one manner, it's useful to provide a thorough set of type
specifiers when you need files of a given format.
For instance, there are a number of ways Microsoft Word files can be identified, so a site that accepts Word files might use an <input> like
this:
<input

type="file"

id="docpicker"

accept=".doc,.docx,.xml,application/msword,application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document" />

capture
The capture attribute value is a string that specifies which camera to use for capture of image or video data, if the accept attribute indicates
that the input should be of one of those types. A value of user indicates that the user-facing camera and/or microphone should be used. A
value of environment specifies that the outward-facing camera and/or microphone should be used. If this attribute is missing, the user agent
is free to decide on its own what to do. If the requested facing mode isn't available, the user agent may fall back to its preferred default mode.

Note: capture was previously a Boolean attribute which, if present, requested that the device's media capture device(s) such as
camera or microphone be used instead of requesting a file input.

multiple
When the multiple Boolean attribute is specified, the file input allows the user to select more than one file.

Non-standard attributes
In addition to the attributes listed above, the following non-standard attributes are available on some browsers. You should try to avoid using
them when possible, since doing so will limit the ability of your code to function in browsers that don't implement them.
webkitdirectory
The Boolean webkitdirectory attribute, if present, indicates that only directories should be available to be selected by the user in the file
picker interface. See HTMLInputElement.webkitdirectory for additional details and examples.
Though originally implemented only for WebKit-based browsers, webkitdirectory is also usable in Microsoft Edge as well as Firefox 50 and
later. However, even though it has relatively broad support, it is still not standard and should not be used unless you have no alternative.
Unique file type specifiers
A unique file type specifier is a string that describes a type of file that may be selected by the user in an <input> element of type file .
Each unique file type specifier may take one of the following forms:
A valid case-insensitive filename extension, starting with a period (".") character. For example: .jpg , .pdf , or .doc .
A valid MIME type string, with no extensions.
The string audio/* meaning "any audio file".
The string video/* meaning "any video file".
The string image/* meaning "any image file".
The accept attribute takes a string containing one or more of these unique file type specifiers as its value, separated by commas. For
example, a file picker that needs content that can be presented as an image, including both standard image formats and PDF files, might look
like this:
<input type="file" accept="image/*,.pdf" />

Using file inputs

A basic example #
<form method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">

<div>

<label for="file">Choose file to upload</label>

<input type="file" id="file" name="file" multiple />

</div>

<div>

<button>Submit</button>

</div>

</form>

This produces the following output:

Note: You can find this example on GitHub too — see the source code , and also see it running live .

Regardless of the user's device or operating system, the file input provides a button that opens up a file picker dialog that allows the user to
choose a file.
Including the multiple attribute, as shown above, specifies that multiple files can be chosen at once. The user can choose multiple files from
the file picker in any way that their chosen platform allows (e.g. by holding down Shift or Control , and then clicking). If you only want the
user to choose a single file per <input> , omit the multiple attribute.
Getting information on selected files
The selected files' are returned by the element's HTMLInputElement.files property, which is a FileList object containing a list of File
objects. The FileList behaves like an array, so you can check its length property to get the number of selected files.
Each File object contains the following information:
name

The file's name.

lastModified

A number specifying the date and time at which the file was last modified, in milliseconds since the UNIX epoch (January 1, 1970 at
midnight).
lastModifiedDate

A Date object representing the date and time at which the file was last modified. This is deprecated and should not be used. Use
lastModified instead.
size

The size of the file in bytes.

type

The file's MIME type.

webkitRelativePath

A string specifying the file's path relative to the base directory selected in a directory picker (that is, a file picker in which the
webkitdirectory attribute is set). This is non-standard and should be used with caution.

Note: You can set as well as get the value of HTMLInputElement.files in all modern browsers; this was most recently added to
Firefox, in version 57 (see Firefox bug 1384030 ).

Limiting accepted file types

Often you won't want the user to be able to pick any arbitrary type of file; instead, you often want them to select files of a specific type or
types. For example, if your file input lets users upload a profile picture, you probably want them to select web-compatible image formats, such
as JPEG or PNG.
Acceptable file types can be specified with the accept attribute, which takes a comma-separated list of allowed file extensions or MIME
types. Some examples:
accept="image/png"or accept=".png" — Accepts PNG files.
accept="image/png, image/jpeg" or accept=".png, .jpg, .jpeg" — Accept PNG or JPEG files.

accept="image/*" — Accept any file with an image/* MIME type. (Many mobile devices also let the user take a picture with the camera

when this is used.)

accept=".doc,.docx,.xml,application/msword,application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document" — accept

anything that smells like an MS Word document.

Let's look at a more complete example:
<form method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">

<div>

<label for="profile_pic">Choose file to upload</label>

<input

type="file"

id="profile_pic"

name="profile_pic"

accept=".jpg, .jpeg, .png" />

</div>

<div>

<button>Submit</button>

</div>

</form>

This produces a similar-looking output to the previous example:

 Choose file to upload
Choose file No file chosen
Submit

Note: You can find this example on GitHub too — see the source code , and also see it running live .

It may look similar, but if you try selecting a file with this input, you'll see that the file picker only lets you select the file types specified in the
accept value (the exact interface differs across browsers and operating systems).

The accept attribute doesn't validate the types of the selected files; it provides hints for browsers to guide users towards selecting the
correct file types. It is still possible (in most cases) for users to toggle an option in the file chooser that makes it possible to override this and
select any file they wish, and then choose incorrect file types.
Because of this, you should make sure that the accept attribute is backed up by appropriate server-side validation.
Notes
1. You cannot set the value of a file picker from a script — doing something like the following has no effect:
const input = document.querySelector("input[type=file]");

input.value = "foo";

2. When a file is chosen using an <input type="file"> , the real path to the source file is not shown in the input's value attribute for obvious
security reasons. Instead, the filename is shown, with C:\fakepath\ prepended to it. There are some historical reasons for this quirk, but it
is supported across all modern browsers, and in fact is defined in the spec .
Examples
In this example, we'll present a slightly more advanced file chooser that takes advantage of the file information available in the
HTMLInputElement.files property, as well as showing off a few clever tricks.

Note: You can see the complete source code for this example on GitHub — file-example.html (see it live also ). We won't explain
the CSS; the JavaScript is the main focus.
First of all, let's look at the HTML:
<form method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">

<div>

<label for="image_uploads">Choose images to upload (PNG, JPG)</label>

<input

type="file"

id="image_uploads"

name="image_uploads"

accept=".jpg, .jpeg, .png"

multiple />

</div>

<div class="preview">

<p>No files currently selected for upload</p>

</div>

<div>

<button>Submit</button>

 </div>

</form>

This is similar to what we've seen before — nothing special to comment on.
Next, let's walk through the JavaScript.
In the first lines of script, we get references to the form input itself, and the <div> element with the class of .preview . Next, we hide the
<input> element — we do this because file inputs tend to be ugly, difficult to style, and inconsistent in their design across browsers. You can

activate the input element by clicking its <label> , so it is better to visually hide the input and style the label like a button, so the user will
know to interact with it if they want to upload files.
const input = document.querySelector('input');

const preview = document.querySelector('.preview');

input.style.opacity = 0;

Note: opacity is used to hide the file input instead of visibility: hidden or display: none , because assistive technology interprets
the latter two styles to mean the file input isn't interactive.
Next, we add an event listener to the input to listen for changes to its selected value (in this case, when files are selected). The event listener
invokes our custom updateImageDisplay() function.
input.addEventListener('change', updateImageDisplay);

Whenever the updateImageDisplay() function is invoked, we:

Use a while loop to empty the previous contents of the preview <div> .
Grab the FileList object that contains the information on all the selected files, and store it in a variable called curFiles .
Check to see if no files were selected, by checking if curFiles.length is equal to 0. If so, print a message into the preview <div> stating
that no files have been selected.
If files have been selected, we loop through each one, printing information about it into the preview <div> . Things to note here:
We use the custom validFileType() function to check whether the file is of the correct type (e.g. the image types specified in the accept
attribute).
If it is, we:
Print out its name and file size into a list item inside the previous <div> (obtained from file.name and file.size ). The custom
returnFileSize() function returns a nicely-formatted version of the size in bytes/KB/MB (by default the browser reports the size in

absolute bytes).
Generate a thumbnail preview of the image by calling URL.createObjectURL(curFiles[i]) . Then, insert the image into the list item too by
creating a new <img> and setting its src to the thumbnail.
If the file type is invalid, we display a message inside a list item telling the user that they need to select a different file type.
function updateImageDisplay() {

while(preview.firstChild) {

preview.removeChild(preview.firstChild);

const curFiles = input.files;

if (curFiles.length === 0) {

 const para = document.createElement('p');

para.textContent = 'No files currently selected for upload';

preview.appendChild(para);

} else {

const list = document.createElement('ol');

preview.appendChild(list);

for (const file of curFiles) {

const listItem = document.createElement('li');

const para = document.createElement('p');

if (validFileType(file)) {

para.textContent = `File name ${file.name}, file size ${returnFileSize(file.size)}.`;

const image = document.createElement('img');

image.src = URL.createObjectURL(file);

listItem.appendChild(image);

listItem.appendChild(para);

} else {

para.textContent = `File name ${file.name}: Not a valid file type. Update your selection.`;

listItem.appendChild(para);

list.appendChild(listItem);

The custom validFileType() function takes a File object as a parameter, then uses Array.prototype.includes() to check if any value in the
fileTypes matches the file's type property. If a match is found, the function returns true . If no match is found, it returns false .

// https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Media/Formats/Image_types

const fileTypes = [

"image/apng",

"image/bmp",

"image/gif",

"image/jpeg",

"image/pjpeg",

"image/png",

"image/svg+xml",

"image/tiff",

"image/webp",

"image/x-icon"

];

function validFileType(file) {

return fileTypes.includes(file.type);

The returnFileSize() function takes a number (of bytes, taken from the current file's size property), and turns it into a nicely formatted size
in bytes/KB/MB.
function returnFileSize(number) {

if (number < 1024) {

return `${number} bytes`;

} else if (number >= 1024 && number < 1048576) {

return `${(number / 1024).toFixed(1)} KB`;

} else if (number >= 1048576) {

return `${(number / 1048576).toFixed(1)} MB`;

The example looks like this; have a play:

Technical summary
Value A string representing the path to the selected
file.
Events change and
input

Supported common attributes required

Additional Attributes accept,

capture ,
multiple
IDL attributes files and value

DOM interface HTMLInputElement

Methods select()

Implicit ARIA Role no corresponding role

Specifications
Specification
HTML Standard
# file-upload-state-(type=file)

Browser compatibility
Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
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type="file" Android for Android on
Android iOS
Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.
 Full support See implementation notes.

See also
Using files from web applications — contains a number of other useful examples related to <input type="file"> and the File API.
Compatibility of CSS properties

This page was last modified on Feb 26, 2023 by MDN contributors.