Hide the file input. Create a new input to capture a click event and forward it to the hidden input:

<input type="button" id="loadFileXml" value="loadXml" onclick="document.getElementById('file').click();" />
<input type="file" style="display:none;" id="file" name="file"/>

Use Bootstrap FileStyle, which is used to style the file fields of forms. It is a plugin for a jQuery-based component library called Twitter Bootstrap

Sample usage:

Include:

<script type="text/javascript" src="js/bootstrap-filestyle.min.js"> </script>

Via JavaScript:

$(":file").filestyle();

Via data attributes:

<input type="file" class="filestyle" data-classButton="btn btn-primary" data-input="false" data-classIcon="icon-plus" data-buttonText="Your label here.">

You can put an image instead, and do it like this:

HTML:

<img src="/images/uploadButton.png" id="upfile1" style="cursor:pointer" />
<input type="file" id="file1"  name="file1" style="display:none" />

JQuery:

$("#upfile1").click(function () {
    $("#file1").trigger('click');
});

CAVEAT: In IE9 and IE10 if you trigger the onClick in a file input via javascript, the form will be flagged as 'dangerous' and cannot be submitted with javascript, not sure if it can be submitted traditionally.

The "upload file..." text is pre-defined by the browser and can't be changed. The only way to get around this is to use a Flash- or Java-based upload component like swfupload.

Works Perfectly on All Browsers Hope it will work for you too.

HTML:
<input type="file" class="custom-file-input">

CSS:

 .custom-file-input::-webkit-file-upload-button {
  visibility: hidden;
}
.custom-file-input::before {
  content: 'Select some files';
  display: inline-block;
  background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #f9f9f9, #e3e3e3);
  border: 1px solid #999;
  border-radius: 3px;
  padding: 5px 8px;
  outline: none;
  white-space: nowrap;
  -webkit-user-select: none;
  cursor: pointer;
  text-shadow: 1px 1px #fff;
  font-weight: 700;
  font-size: 10pt;
}
.custom-file-input:hover::before {
  border-color: black;
}
.custom-file-input:active::before {
  background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #e3e3e3, #f9f9f9);
}

Change content: 'Select some files'; with the text you want within ''

IF NOT WORKING WITH firefox then use this instead of input:

<label class="custom-file-input" for="Upload" >
</label>

<input id="Upload" type="file" multiple="multiple" name="_photos" accept="image/*" style="visibility: hidden">

Simply

<label class="btn btn-primary">
  <i class="fa fa-image"></i> Your text here<input type="file" style="display: none;"  name="image">
</label>

[Edit with snippet]

<link href="https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.1.3/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<link href="https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.7.0/css/font-awesome.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>

<label class="btn btn-primary">
<i class="fa fa-image"></i> Your text here<input type="file" style="display: none;" name="image">
</label>

I think this is what you want:

<button style="display:block;width:120px; height:30px;" onclick="document.getElementById('getFile').click()">Your text here</button>


<input type='file' id="getFile" style="display:none"> 

This is a JQuery plugin to change the button text of an input file element.

Example HTML:

<input type="file" id="choose-file" />

Example JS:

$('#choose-file').inputFileText({
    text: 'Select File'
});

Result:

<input id="uploadFile" placeholder="Choose File" disabled="disabled" />
<div class="fileUpload btn btn-primary">
    <span>Your name</span>
    <input id="uploadBtn" type="file" class="upload" />
</div>

JS

document.getElementById("uploadBtn").onchange = function () {
    document.getElementById("uploadFile").value = this.value;
 };

more http://geniuscarrier.com/how-to-style-a-html-file-upload-button-in-pure-css/

In Addition to MushyPeas answer, you can add a label to show the filename like so (no jQuery needed):
Credits also to this answer.

<input type="button" id="click-input" value="Write anything" onclick="document.getElementById('file').click();" />
<label for="click-input" id="file-name">Bla bla</label>
<input type="file" style="display:none;" id="file">
<script>
    inputElement = document.getElementById('file')
    labelElement = document.getElementById('file-name')
    inputElement.onchange = function(event) {
        var path = inputElement.value;
        if (path) {
            labelElement.innerHTML = path.split(/(\\|\/)/g).pop()
        } else {
            labelElement.innerHTML = 'Bla bla'
        } 
    }
</script>

Use <label> for the caption

<form enctype='multipart/form-data' action='/uploads.php' method=post>
<label for=b1>
    <u>Your</u> caption here
<input style='width:0px' type=file name=upfile id=b1
 onchange='optionalExtraProcessing(b1.files[0])'
 accept='image/png'>
</label>
</form>

This works without any javascript. You can decorate the label to any degree of complexity, to your heart's content. When you click on the label, the click automatically gets redirected to the file input. The file input itself can be made invisible by any method. If you want the label to appear like a button, there are many solutions, e.g.:

label u {
    -webkit-appearance: button;
    -moz-appearance: button;
    appearance: button;

    text-decoration: none;
    color: initial;
}

I know, nobody asked for it but if anybody is using bootstrap, it can be changed through Label and CSS Pseudo-selector.

For changing button text:

.custom-file-label::after {
  content: "What's up?";
}

For changing field text:

<label class="custom-file-label" for="upload">Drop it like it's hot</label>

Here's a fiddle.

In Bootstrap +4.5 you can simply add this to your code:

.custom-file-input~.custom-file-label::after {
  content: "Your custom text ...";
}

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css" integrity="sha384-B0vP5xmATw1+K9KRQjQERJvTumQW0nPEzvF6L/Z6nronJ3oUOFUFpCjEUQouq2+l" crossorigin="anonymous">

<div class="custom-file">
  <input type="file" class="custom-file-input">
  <label class="custom-file-label">Your custom placeholder ...</label>
</div>

Only CSS & bootstrap class

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css" integrity="sha384-B0vP5xmATw1+K9KRQjQERJvTumQW0nPEzvF6L/Z6nronJ3oUOFUFpCjEUQouq2+l" crossorigin="anonymous">

<div class="col-md-4 input-group">
  <input class="form-control" type="text" />
  <div class="input-group-btn">
    <label for="files" class="btn btn-default">browse</label>
    <input id="files" type="file" class="btn btn-default" style="visibility:hidden;" />
  </div>
</div>

What about icons without using real images and "interactivity"?

Check the following example that doesn't use any image, not even javascript, and also it is interactive in the sense that changes its look on mouse events as on mouse-over and on mouse left or right click.

input
{
  padding: 10px;
  width: 100%;
}

input::file-selector-button
{
  display: none;
}

input::before
{
  border: 1px solid red;
  border-radius: 3px 8px 3px 8px;
  color: red;
  content: attr(value)' Some more text';
  margin: 25px;
  padding: 5px;
}

input:hover:before
{
  border: 1px groove blue;
  background: lime;
}

input:active:before
{
  border: 1px groove blue;
  background: yellow;
}

<input type="file" value="📂 Open..." />

How it works:

Basically, it hides the main button of the standard file input element and shows its pseudo element, indicated by the :before part. Than it styles how it looks like and also some mouse events, so it is kind of "interactive".

Also using the :file-selector-button pseudo-element, allows to style the button it self or even to not display it at all as I have done int the above example with the code display: none;. This allows to use the :before element as replacement of the button.

The advantage of doing it with css is that by not using any javascript it will work even if the user's browser has javascript disabled.

About the folder icon:

Actually it is a char it self in UNICODE: 📂 that is U+1F4C2 code-point. To see it correctly the user of the page must have a font that supports it. I did not install any new font into my system (Win7) and I see it correctly: so I suppose it is correctly seen by everyone else.

EDIT: I see now by the comments that you are asking about the button text, and not the file path. My bad. I'll leave my original answer below in case someone else who stumbles upon this question interprets it the way I originally did.

2nd EDIT: I had deleted this answer because I decided that I misunderstood the question and my answer was not relevant. However, comments in another answer indicated that people still wanted to see this answer so I'm undeleting it.

MY ORIGINAL ANSWER (I thought the OP was asking about the path, not the button text):

This is not a supported feature for security reasons. The Opera web browser used to support this but it was removed. Think about what would be possible if this were supported; You could make a page with a file upload input, pre-populate it with a path to some sensitive file and then auto-submit the form using javascript triggered by the onload event. This would happen too fast for the user to do anything about it.

Here is a way to "change" the text of an input with file type, with pure HTML and javascript:

<input id='browse' type='file' style='width:0px'>
<button id='browser' onclick='browse.click()'>
    *The text you want*
</button>

1. Before that <input type="file">, add an image and <input style="position:absolute"> it will occupy the space of <input type="file">

2. Use the following CSS to the file element

   position:relative;  
   opacity:0;  
   z-index:99;
   

You can simply add some css trick. you don't need javascript or more input files and i keep existing value attribute. you need to add only css. you can try this solution.

.btn-file-upload{
     width: 187px;
     position:relative;
 }

.btn-file-upload:after{
    content:  attr(value);
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    bottom: 0;    
    width: 48%;
    background: #795548;
    color: white;
    border-radius: 2px;
    text-align: center;
    font-size: 12px;
    line-height: 2;
 }

<input type="file" class="btn-file-upload" value="Uploadfile" />

for me it does not work the custom text with bootstrap-filestyle. It help with button decoration but text its weird to be changed, before get into wrestling with css i try the following :

$( document ).ready(function() {
   $('.buttonText').html('Seleccione ficheros');
});

bootstrap-filestyle render the component as span with a class named butonText, so when document load just change the text. easy right and it must work on all browsers.

cheers

if you using rails and have problem apply it, I would like to add some tips from original answer posted by @Fernando Kosh

• Download file zip and copy file bootstrap-filestyle.min.js ke folder app/assets/javascripts/

• open your application.js and add this line below

  //= require bootstrap-filestyle.min

• open your coffee and add this line

  $(":file").filestyle({buttonName: "btn-primary",buttonBefore: true,buttonText: " Your text here",icon: false});

I did it like this for my project:

.btn-outlined.btn-primary {
  color: #000;
}
.btn-outlined.btn-primary:active, .btn-outlined.btn-positive:active, .btn-outlined.btn-negative:active {
  color:#000;
}
.btn-block {
  display: block;
  width: 100%;
  padding: 15px 0;
  margin-bottom: 10px;
  font-size: 18px;
  font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
  text-align: center;
}

<label for="fileUpload" class="btn btn-primary btn-block btn-outlined">Your text</label>
<input type="file" id="fileUpload"style="display: none;">

Extending Ken Karlo's solution to answer Ragnar's question .

For react I am changing the text via useState like this:

import { FC, useState } from 'react'
import classNames from 'classnames' // classNames to organize the classes.
import { ComponentPropsWithRef } from 'react'

type Props = ComponentPropsWithRef<'input'>

const UIPanel: FC<Props> = (props) => {
  const [files, setFiles] = useState<any[]>([])

  const handleFileChange = (event: any) => {
    let cfiles:any[] = event.target.files
    setFiles(files => cfiles)
  }

  let displayText = "Whatever text you want"
  return (
    <>
      <label class="btn btn-primary">
        <span>
        {displayText}  <span style="color:darkgrey" >{files && files.length > 0 ? (files?.length) + " files":"No file chosen"}</span>
        </span>
        <input onChange={(e) => handleFileChange(e)}
                type="file"
                buttonSize="small"
                displayText="Choose Locales Folder"
                files={files}
                webkitdirectory=""
                directory=""
                multiple
                className={classNames('hidden')}
        />
      </label>
    </>
  )
}

I am changging the only files.length part to mimic the original one, similarly you can change displayText variable to change the instruction text on the button as well.

PS: My usecase is uploading a folder which is why you see webkitdirectory,directory,multiple, if yours is single file you can change accordingly.

This is an alternative solution that may be of help to you. This hides the text that appears out of the button, mixing it with the background-color of the div. Then you can give the div a title you like.

<div style="padding:10px;font-weight:bolder; background-color:#446655;color: white;margin-top:10px;width:112px;overflow: hidden;">
     UPLOAD IMAGE <input style="width:100px;color:#446655;display: inline;" type="file"  />
</div>