How to get folder directory from HTML input type "file" or any other way?

Question

So I have a basic form input with the type "file" however I want the user to be able to select a folder location and not a file.

How can I get this input to select a folder and not a file, or is there another way to do it?

Solution

Stumbled on this page as well, and then found out this is possible with just javascript (no plugins like ActiveX or Flash)

Basically, they added support for a new attribute on the file input element "webkitdirectory". You can use it like this:

<input type="file" id="ctrl" webkitdirectory directory multiple/>

It allows you to select directories. The multiple attribute is a good fallback for browsers that support multiple file selection but not directory selection.

When you select a directory the files are available through the dom object for the control (document.getElementById('ctrl')), just like they are with the multiple attribute. The browsers adds all files in the selected directory to that list recursively.

You can already add the directory attribute as well in case this gets standardized at some point (couldn't find any info regarding that)

Comments

[hjpotter92]

Why would you chose to save the folder location?

[Parag Meshram]

Are you trying to upload all files in the selected folder?

[Spudley]

The question is, what would you do with the folder once you got it? Would you want to upload all the files in the folder? Or do something else with to the folder? The browser would not ordinarily be able to do anything with the folder directly, so unless your plan it to upload the contents, there isn't much logic in wanting to specify the folder.

[Ben]

Ok so basically I have PHP script which creates an Array of all image files that are located within a folder and I am wanting to create some kind of selection process for the user to select which folder the script needs to run on. The PHP script then creates an array of image files and displays all the images on one web page. Sounds like a bad idea now, but there is point to doing this.

[Miscreant]

Directory Upload proposal: wicg.github.io/directory-upload/proposal.html

[Nikolay Melnikov]

Note that this, however, blocks the possibility of selecting individual files. Up to date, the only way to select both files and directories using 'standard' ways (non-Flash, non-Silverlight, etc.) is by providing two separate input elements.

[antonj]

@NikolayMelnikov or by using drag and drop

[Casper]

How can I make it accept multiple things including files and folders?

[Xenos]

I wouldn't rely on this because I see no such directory attribute in the live HTML spec html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/input.html#the-input-element

[Raschid JFR]

It looks like it's supported by the major desktop browsers: caniuse.com/#feat=input-file-directory

[madc]

Does not really relate to the question.

[ashleedawg]

@RaschidRafaelly - Looking at your linked page, support for 44% of users isn't great... and almost zero support on mobile. That said, webkitdirectory, although not on a standards track, currently has 92% support on desktop and mobile.