How to force file download with PHP

Read the docs about built-in PHP function readfile

$file_url = 'http://www.myremoteserver.com/file.exe';
header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: Binary"); 
header("Content-disposition: attachment; filename=\"" . basename($file_url) . "\""); 
readfile($file_url); 

Also make sure to add proper content type based on your file application/zip, application/pdf etc. - but only if you do not want to trigger the save-as dialog.

<?php
$file = "http://example.com/go.exe"; 

header("Content-Description: File Transfer"); 
header("Content-Type: application/octet-stream"); 
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"". basename($file) ."\""); 

readfile ($file);
exit(); 
?>

Or, when the file is not openable with the browser, you can just use the Location header:

<?php header("Location: http://example.com/go.exe"); ?>

header("Content-Type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: Binary");
header("Content-disposition: attachment; filename=\"file.exe\""); 
echo readfile($url);

is correct

or better one for exe type of files

header("Location: $url");

Display your file first and set its value into url.

index.php

<a href="download.php?download='.$row['file'].'" title="Download File">

download.php

<?php
/*db connectors*/
include('dbconfig.php');

/*function to set your files*/
function output_file($file, $name, $mime_type='')
{
    if(!is_readable($file)) die('File not found or inaccessible!');
    $size = filesize($file);
    $name = rawurldecode($name);
    $known_mime_types=array(
        "htm" => "text/html",
        "exe" => "application/octet-stream",
        "zip" => "application/zip",
        "doc" => "application/msword",
        "jpg" => "image/jpg",
        "php" => "text/plain",
        "xls" => "application/vnd.ms-excel",
        "ppt" => "application/vnd.ms-powerpoint",
        "gif" => "image/gif",
        "pdf" => "application/pdf",
        "txt" => "text/plain",
        "html"=> "text/html",
        "png" => "image/png",
        "jpeg"=> "image/jpg"
    );

    if($mime_type==''){
        $file_extension = strtolower(substr(strrchr($file,"."),1));
        if(array_key_exists($file_extension, $known_mime_types)){
            $mime_type=$known_mime_types[$file_extension];
        } else {
            $mime_type="application/force-download";
        };
    };
    @ob_end_clean();
    if(ini_get('zlib.output_compression'))
    ini_set('zlib.output_compression', 'Off');
    header('Content-Type: ' . $mime_type);
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.$name.'"');
    header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
    header('Accept-Ranges: bytes');

    if(isset($_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE']))
    {
        list($a, $range) = explode("=",$_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE'],2);
        list($range) = explode(",",$range,2);
        list($range, $range_end) = explode("-", $range);
        $range=intval($range);
        if(!$range_end) {
            $range_end=$size-1;
        } else {
            $range_end=intval($range_end);
        }

        $new_length = $range_end-$range+1;
        header("HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content");
        header("Content-Length: $new_length");
        header("Content-Range: bytes $range-$range_end/$size");
    } else {
        $new_length=$size;
        header("Content-Length: ".$size);
    }

    $chunksize = 1*(1024*1024);
    $bytes_send = 0;
    if ($file = fopen($file, 'r'))
    {
        if(isset($_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE']))
        fseek($file, $range);

        while(!feof($file) &&
            (!connection_aborted()) &&
            ($bytes_send<$new_length)
        )
        {
            $buffer = fread($file, $chunksize);
            echo($buffer);
            flush();
            $bytes_send += strlen($buffer);
        }
        fclose($file);
    } else
        die('Error - can not open file.');
    die();
}
set_time_limit(0);

/*set your folder*/
$file_path='uploads/'."your file";

/*output must be folder/yourfile*/

output_file($file_path, ''."your file".'', $row['type']);

/*back to index.php while downloading*/
header('Location:index.php');
?>

In case you have to download a file with a size larger than the allowed memory limit (memory_limit ini setting), which would cause the PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 5242880 bytes exhausted error, you can do this:

// File to download.
$file = '/path/to/file';

// Maximum size of chunks (in bytes).
$maxRead = 1 * 1024 * 1024; // 1MB

// Give a nice name to your download.
$fileName = 'download_file.txt';

// Open a file in read mode.
$fh = fopen($file, 'r');

// These headers will force download on browser,
// and set the custom file name for the download, respectively.
header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . $fileName . '"');

// Run this until we have read the whole file.
// feof (eof means "end of file") returns `true` when the handler
// has reached the end of file.
while (!feof($fh)) {
    // Read and output the next chunk.
    echo fread($fh, $maxRead);

    // Flush the output buffer to free memory.
    ob_flush();
}

// Exit to make sure not to output anything else.
exit;

A modification of the accepted answer above, which also detects the MIME type in runtime:

$finfo = finfo_open(FILEINFO_MIME_TYPE);
header('Content-Type: '.finfo_file($finfo, $path));

$finfo = finfo_open(FILEINFO_MIME_ENCODING);
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: '.finfo_file($finfo, $path)); 

header('Content-disposition: attachment; filename="'.basename($path).'"'); 
readfile($path); // do the double-download-dance (dirty but worky)

The answers above me works. But, I'd like to contribute a method on how to perform it using GET

on your html/php page

$File = 'some/dir/file.jpg';
<a href="<?php echo '../sumdir/download.php?f='.$File; ?>" target="_blank">Download</a>

and download.php contains

$file = $_GET['f']; 

header("Expires: 0");
header("Last-Modified: " . gmdate("D, d M Y H:i:s") . " GMT");
header("Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate");
header("Cache-Control: post-check=0, pre-check=0", false);
header("Pragma: no-cache");

$ext = pathinfo($file, PATHINFO_EXTENSION);
$basename = pathinfo($file, PATHINFO_BASENAME);

header("Content-type: application/".$ext);
header('Content-length: '.filesize($file));
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"$basename\"");
ob_clean(); 
flush();
readfile($file);
exit;

this should work on any file types. this is not tested using POST, but it could work.

you can use download attribute to force download a file:

<a href="https://test.com/aaa.exe" download>click here to download</a>

You can stream download too which will consume significantly less resource. example:

$readableStream = fopen('test.zip', 'rb');
$writableStream = fopen('php://output', 'wb');

header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="test.zip"');
stream_copy_to_stream($readableStream, $writableStream);
ob_flush();
flush();

In the above example, I am downloading a test.zip (which was actually the android studio zip on my local machine). php://output is a write-only stream (generally used by echo or print). after that, you just need to set the required headers and call stream_copy_to_stream(source, destination). stream_copy_to_stream() method acts as a pipe which takes the input from the source stream (read stream) and pipes it to the destination stream (write stream) and it also avoids the issue of allowed memory exhausted so you can actually download files that are bigger than your PHP memory_limit.

The following code is a correct way of implementing a download service in php as explained in the following tutorial

header('Content-Type: application/zip');
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"$file_name\"");
set_time_limit(0);
$file = @fopen($filePath, "rb");
while(!feof($file)) {
    print(@fread($file, 1024*8));
    ob_flush();
    flush();
}

try this:

header('Content-type: audio/mp3'); 
header('Content-disposition: attachment; 
filename=“'.$trackname'”');                             
readfile('folder name /'.$trackname);          
exit();

http://php.net/manual/en/function.readfile.php

That's all you need. "Monkey.gif" change to your file name. If you need to download from other server, "monkey.gif" change to "http://www.exsample.com/go.exe"