Downloading images with node.js

You can use Axios (a promise-based HTTP client for Node.js) to download images in the order of your choosing in an asynchronous environment:

npm i axios

Then, you can use the following basic example to begin downloading images:

const fs = require('fs');
const axios = require('axios');

/* ============================================================
  Function: Download Image
============================================================ */

const download_image = (url, image_path) =>
  axios({
    url,
    responseType: 'stream',
  }).then(
    response =>
      new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
        response.data
          .pipe(fs.createWriteStream(image_path))
          .on('finish', () => resolve())
          .on('error', e => reject(e));
      }),
  );

/* ============================================================
  Download Images in Order
============================================================ */

(async () => {
  let example_image_1 = await download_image('https://example.com/test-1.png', 'example-1.png');

  console.log(example_image_1.status); // true
  console.log(example_image_1.error); // ''

  let example_image_2 = await download_image('https://example.com/does-not-exist.png', 'example-2.png');

  console.log(example_image_2.status); // false
  console.log(example_image_2.error); // 'Error: Request failed with status code 404'

  let example_image_3 = await download_image('https://example.com/test-3.png', 'example-3.png');

  console.log(example_image_3.status); // true
  console.log(example_image_3.error); // ''
})();

I'd suggest using the request module. Downloading a file is as simple as the following code:

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

var download = function(uri, filename, callback){
  request.head(uri, function(err, res, body){
    console.log('content-type:', res.headers['content-type']);
    console.log('content-length:', res.headers['content-length']);

    request(uri).pipe(fs.createWriteStream(filename)).on('close', callback);
  });
};

download('https://www.google.com/images/srpr/logo3w.png', 'google.png', function(){
  console.log('done');
});

var fs = require('fs'),
http = require('http'),
https = require('https');

var Stream = require('stream').Transform;

var downloadImageToUrl = (url, filename, callback) => {

    var client = http;
    if (url.toString().indexOf("https") === 0){
      client = https;
     }

    client.request(url, function(response) {                                        
      var data = new Stream();                                                    

      response.on('data', function(chunk) {                                       
         data.push(chunk);                                                         
      });                                                                         

      response.on('end', function() {                                             
         fs.writeFileSync(filename, data.read());                               
      });                                                                         
   }).end();
};

downloadImageToUrl('https://www.google.com/images/srpr/logo11w.png', 'public/uploads/users/abc.jpg');

I ran into this problem some days ago, for a pure NodeJS answer I would suggest using Stream to merge the chunks together.

var http = require('http'),                                                
    Stream = require('stream').Transform,                                  
    fs = require('fs');                                                    

var url = 'http://www.google.com/images/srpr/logo11w.png';                    

http.request(url, function(response) {                                        
  var data = new Stream();                                                    

  response.on('data', function(chunk) {                                       
    data.push(chunk);                                                         
  });                                                                         

  response.on('end', function() {                                             
    fs.writeFileSync('image.png', data.read());                               
  });                                                                         
}).end();

The newest Node versions won't work well with binary strings, so merging chunks with strings is not a good idea when working with binary data.

*Just be careful when using 'data.read()', it will empty the stream for the next 'read()' operation. If you want to use it more than once, store it somewhere.