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FileSystem

files/en-us/web/api/filesystem/index.md

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{{APIRef("File and Directory Entries API")}}

The File and Directory Entries API interface FileSystem is used to represent a file system. These objects can be obtained from the {{domxref("FileSystemEntry.filesystem", "filesystem")}} property on any file system entry. Some browsers offer additional APIs to create and manage file systems, such as Chrome's {{domxref("Window.requestFileSystem", "requestFileSystem()")}} method.

This interface will not grant you access to the users' filesystem. Instead, you will have a "virtual drive" within the browser sandbox if you want to gain access to the users' file system, you need to invoke the user, for example by installing a Chrome extension. The relevant Chrome API can be found in the Chrome developer docs.

Basic concepts

There are two ways to get access to a FileSystem object:

  1. You can directly ask for one representing a sandboxed file system created just for your web app directly by calling window.requestFileSystem(). If that call is successful, it executes a callback handler, which receives as a parameter a FileSystem object describing the file system.
  2. You can get it from a file system entry object, through its {{domxref("FileSystemEntry.filesystem", "filesystem")}} property.

Instance properties

  • {{domxref("FileSystem.name")}} {{ReadOnlyInline}}
    • : A string representing the file system's name. This name is unique among the entire list of exposed file systems.
  • {{domxref("FileSystem.root")}} {{ReadOnlyInline}}
    • : A {{domxref("FileSystemDirectoryEntry")}} object which represents the file system's root directory. Through this object, you can gain access to all files and directories in the file system.

Specifications

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}

See also