Question

Node SDK - download public shared file

Forum|Forum|6 months ago
May 21, 2025
3 replies
13 views

community-manager
Box Employee

Hello everyone,
I'm making my very first Box SDK NodeJS app which should download a public non-passwrod-protected file given the public share URL. No login should be requested.
I have created the app inside the developer section and generated the proper tokens.

On the github documentation I've found this method that should be used to download a file.
https://rawgit.com/box/box-node-sdk/master/docs/jsdoc/Files.html#getReadStream
The first parameter is the `fileId` but I don't find written anywhere what this id is and where to find it if what I have is just a share link.

I've tried this code

var fs = require('fs'), 
    BoxSDK = require('box-node-sdk'), 
        sdk = new BoxSDK({ 
        clientID: '...', 
        clientSecret: '...' 
    }), 
    client = sdk.getAnonymousClient(),
    file_id = process.argv[2].replace(/\S*\/(\S+)$/,"$1");
    
    client.files.getReadStream(file_id, null, function(error, stream) 
    { 
        if (error) { 
            throw error; 
        }
        // write the file to disk 
        var output = fs.createWriteStream('./output/'+file_id+".zip"); //I know for sure there will only be zip files 
stream.pipe(output); 
    });

But running it with this command

nodejs index.js https://adrime.box.com/s/s5w7lzm4xfifmxrod9r7eeniv9nhtenk

I get this error:

Error: Unexpected API Response [404 Not Found] (not_found: "Not Found") 
at Object.module.exports.buildResponseError (/home/andrea/dev/node/box_api/node_modules/box-node-sdk/lib/util/errors.js:57:23) 
at Object.module.exports.buildUnexpectedResponseError (/home/andrea/dev/node/box_api/node_modules/box-node-sdk/lib/util/errors.js:94:15) 
at /home/andrea/dev/node/box_api/node_modules/box-node-sdk/lib/managers/files.js:148:20 
at BoxClient._handleResponse (/home/andrea/dev/node/box_api/node_modules/box-node-sdk/lib/box-client.js:291:2) 
at handleResponseCallback (/home/andrea/dev/node/box_api/node_modules/box-node-sdk/lib/box-client.js:233:9) 
at /home/andrea/dev/node/box_api/node_modules/box-node-sdk/lib/api-request.js:285:3 
at nextTickCallbackWith0Args (node.js:436:9) 
at process._tickCallback (node.js:365:13)

Of course I get that the last part of the shared link is not the id.
Can you please help me in programmatically downloading a public shared file?

Thank you in advance!

C

community-manager
Author
Box Employee
Forum|Forum|6 months ago
May 21, 2025

For the moment I've used this solution:

var fs         = require("fs"),
    request    = require("request");

function downloadFile(source, target, callback)
{
    var wr = fs.createWriteStream(target);
    
    wr.on("error", function (err) {
        callback(err);
    });
    
    wr.on("close", function (ex) {
        callback();
    });

    request
        .get(source)
        .on("error",function(err){
            callback(err);
        })
        .on('response', function(response) 
        {
            if((""+response.statusCode).charAt(0) != "2")
                callback({
                        msg: "File not found: "+response.request.href, 
                        path: response.request.href,
                        toString: function(){
                            return this.msg;
                        }
                     });
        })
        .on("end", function (ex) {
            console.log("request ended");
        })
    .pipe(wr)
}

function onDownloadComplete(err)
{
    if(err)
        throw err
    
    console.log("DOWNLOAD COMPLETE");
}

function init()
{
    var static_url = process.argv[2].replace(/\/s\//,"/shared/static/") + ".zip";
    
    downloadFile(static_url, "./output/file.zip", onDownloadComplete);
}

init();

Hope this will help others.