How to Download a File from URL Using PowerShell?

One of my team members recently searched for a PowerShell script to download files from a URL. I suggested different methods to achieve this. In this tutorial, I will explain how to download a file from a URL using PowerShell.

Download a File from a URL Using PowerShell

There are multiple ways to download files using PowerShell. I will cover three primary methods:

1. Using the Invoke-WebRequest cmdlet (built-in to PowerShell)
2. Using the System.Net.WebClient class (.NET class)
3. Using the Start-BitsTransfer cmdlet (requires BITS service)

Let me show you each method with examples.

1. Using Invoke-WebRequest

The Invoke-WebRequest cmdlet is the best way to download files from a URL using PowerShell. It allows you to send HTTP/HTTPS requests and save the response content to a file.

Here’s an example of downloading a ZIP file of US historical weather data:

$url = "https://www.spguides.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/WeatherInfo.zip" 
$output = "C:\WeatherData\WeatherInfo.zip"
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $url -OutFile $output

This downloads the file from the specified URL and saves it to the output path on your local machine.

In this example:

• $sourceUrl contains the URL of the file to be downloaded.
• $destinationPath specifies the local path where the file will be saved.
• Invoke-WebRequest fetches the file and saves it to the specified path.

I executed the above PowerShell script, and you can see it displays the exact output in the screenshot below; it downloaded the zip file and saved it on the local drive.

Sometimes, you might receive an error like The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.

If the server requires authentication, you can include credentials:

$sourceUrl = "https://www.spguides.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/WeatherInfo.zip"
$destinationPath = "C:\WeatherData\WeatherInfo.zip"
$username = "your-username"
$password = "your-password"

$securePassword = ConvertTo-SecureString $password -AsPlainText -Force
$credentials = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ($username, $securePassword)

try {
    Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $sourceUrl -OutFile $destinationPath -Credential $credentials -Headers @{
        "User-Agent" = "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/87.0.4280.88 Safari/537.36"
    }
    Write-Output "Download successful!"
} catch {
    Write-Output "An error occurred: $_"
}

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2. using System.Net.WebClient

Let me show you another method to download a file from a URL using PowerShell.

The System.Net.WebClient class provides another way to download files in PowerShell. It’s a .NET class so it requires creating a WebClient object first.

Example of downloading US national park data:

$url = "https://www.nps.gov/subjects/developer/api-documentation.htm#/parks/getPark"
$output = "C:\WeatherData\us-parks.json"

$wc = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
$wc.DownloadFile($url, $output)

This creates a new WebClient object, then uses its DownloadFile() method to save the file from the URL to the specified local path.

Here is the exact output in the screenshot below:

If you want to handle timeout as well as any errors, then you can use the try catch block. Let me show you another example.

$sourceUrl = "https://example.com/financial-report.pdf"
$destinationPath = "C:\Downloads\financial-report.pdf"

$webClient = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
$webClient.Timeout = 60000 # Timeout in milliseconds

try {
    $webClient.DownloadFile($sourceUrl, $destinationPath)
    Write-Output "Download successful!"
} catch {
    Write-Output "An error occurred: $_"
}

Read How to Create a Folder If Not Exists in PowerShell?

3. using Start-BitsTransfer

Start-BitsTransfer is a PowerShell cmdlet for the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS). It supports resuming interrupted downloads, download throttling, and asynchronous transfers.

Example downloading US Census data:

$url = "https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/datasets/2020-2021/cities/totals/SUB-IP-EST2021-ANNRNK.csv"
$output = "C:\MyFolder\us-city-population-2021.csv"

Start-BitsTransfer -Source $url -Destination $output

This uses BITS to download the CSV file of 2021 US city population estimates from the Census Bureau website to the specified local destination.

Some key advantages of Start-BitsTransfer are:

• Ability to pause and resume downloads
• Configurable transfer rates to throttle bandwidth usage
• Asynchronous transfer mode for parallel downloads

However, the BITS service must be running on your system.

Read How to Create a File in PowerShell if it Doesn’t Exist?

Invoke-WebRequest Vs. System.Net.WebClient Vs. Start-BitsTransfer

Here’s a comparison table to help you decide which method to use:

Method	Ease of Use	Supports Authentication	Handles Large Files	Automatic Resume
Invoke-WebRequest	Easy	Yes	No	No
Start-BitsTransfer	Moderate	No	Yes	Yes
System.Net.WebClient	Moderate	Yes	No	No

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we covered three different ways to download a file from a URL using PowerShell:

1. Invoke-WebRequest
2. System.Net.WebClient
3. Start-BitsTransfer

I have also provided examples for each method. I hope you found this tutorial helpful for understanding how to use PowerShell to download files from the web. Let me know if you have any other questions!

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