How To Download A Big File From Dropbox With Node.js?

I want to implement a big file downloading (approx. 10-1024 Mb). I've already succeeded to get a file from Dropbox: operationResult = await dbx.filesDownload({ path: `/${CONFIG

Solution 1:

I've solved the issue by switching from filesDownload to filesGetTemporaryLink, which returns a link to a file instead of the file itself. Then I trigger a downloading of this link.

The final result:

operationResult = await dbx.filesGetTemporaryLink({
    path: `/${CONFIG_STORAGE.uploader.assetsPath}/${fileUUID}`
});

const downloadResult = Object.freeze({
    fileLength: operationResult?.metadata.size,
    fileLink: operationResult?.link,
    fileMIME: mime.lookup(operationResult?.metadata.name),
    fileName: operationResult?.metadata.name,
    isSucceeded,
    message
});

return downloadResult;

Then I send the output to a client:

res.json(downloadResult);

On a client-side I get it via await/async Fetch API call:

const fileResponse = await fetch(``${host}/downloadDocument`, {
    body: JSON.stringify({fileUUID: fileName}),
    cache: "no-cache",
    credentials: "same-origin",
    headers: {
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
    },
    method: "POST",
    mode: "cors"
});

const fileData = await fileResponse.json();

const aTag = document.createElement("a");

aTag.href = fileData.fileLink;
aTag.download = fileData.fileName;
aTag.click();

As a result, a server doesn't have to deal with files at all, no extra CPU, RAM, or traffic impact, no matter what size of a file I'm trying to download.