How to download GIT LFS files

downloadGitLfsFiles.md

How to retrieve GIT LFS files from GitHub

Retrieving non-LFS files

Through the GitHub API it is possible to retrieve individual files from a Git repository via, e.g. curl. To do so, first retrieve the content information for the relevant file (or folder):

curl https://api.github.com/repos/{organisation}/{repository}/contents/{file or folder path}

For private repositories, authenticate using your username and a personal access token

curl -u {username}:{personal access token'} https://api.github.com/repos/{organisation}/{repository}/contents/{file or folder path}

This will return a JSON response:

{
  "name": "README.md",
  "path": "README.md",
  "sha": "41553899f901843f5339794256s2444ed351708a",
  "size": 815,
  "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/{organisation}/{repository}/contents/README.md?ref=main",
  "html_url": "https://github.com/{organisation}/{repository}/blob/main/README.md",
  "git_url": "https://api.github.com/repos/{organisation}/{repository}/git/blobs/41553899f901843f5339794256s2444ed351708a",
  "download_url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/{organisation}/{repository}/main/README.md?token=AAL57UOYWVQ56ZZGDGWYUAK76WFNO",
  "type": "file",
  "_links": {
    "self": "https://api.github.com/repos/{organisation}/{repository}/contents/README.md?ref=main",
    "git": "https://api.github.com/repos/{organisation}/{repository}/git/blobs/41553899f901843f5339794256s2444ed351708a",
    "html": "https://github.com/{organisation}/{repository}/blob/main/README.md"
  }
}

The file can then be downloaded using the sha:

curl -u https://api.github.com/repos/{organisation}/{repository}/git/blobs/41553899f901843f5339794256s2444ed351708a

This gives another JSON response with the file contents in base64 encoding:

{
  "sha": "41553899f901843f5339794256s2444ed351708a",
  "node_id": "{node id}",
  "size": 815,
  "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/{organisation}/{repository}/git/blobs/41553899f901843f5339794256s2444ed351708a",
  "content": "{base64 encoded content}",
  "encoding": "base64"
}

Note that for smaller files, the base64 encoded content will already be included in the first call.

Retrieving LFS files

Retrieving an LFS file requires a few extra steps. For LFS files, decoding the base64 string will not return the file's content, but information in the following format:

version https://git-lfs.github.com/spec/v1
oid sha256:{sha}
size {filesize}

Using this information, you need to create a JSON object as follows, filling in the sha and filesize information from the previous step:

{
    "operation": "download", 
    "transfer": ["basic"], 
    "objects": [
        {"oid": "{sha}", "size": "{size}"}
    ]}
}

Pass this object as data parameter to a curl request to the LFS api:

curl -X POST \
-H "Accept: application/vnd.git-lfs+json" \
-H "Content-type: application/json" \
-d '{"operation": "download", "transfer": ["basic"], "objects": [{"oid": "{sha}", "size": {size}}]}' \
https://github.com/{organisation}/{repository}.git/info/lfs/objects/batch

Almost there! This should return a JSON object that tells you where the file is stored:

{
  "objects": [
    {
      "oid": "{sha}",
      "size": {size},
      "actions": {
        "download": {
          "href": "https://github-cloud.s3.amazonaws.com/alambic/media/278163869/a2/42/{sha}?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=XXX%2F20210106%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20210106T104409Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-Signature=XXX&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&actor_id=XXX&key_id=0&repo_id=XXX&token=1",
          "expires_at": "2021-01-06T11:44:09Z",
          "expires_in": 3600
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Download the file from the URL stated in the href attribute.

Thanks for the example!
I am trying to write a implementation to make a github lfs files downloadable via a button on a website. My current approach is to request the oid and file size with a javascript get request. This works as expected, but when I then try to make the post request to retrieve the download url I get the following error:
Access to XMLHttpRequest at 'https://github.com/{organization...}/{repo...}.git/info/lfs/objects/batch' from origin 'http://localhost:9000' has been blocked by CORS policy: Response to preflight request doesn't pass access control check: No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource.
I assume this is because github.com isn't meant to be used as an api and therefore doesnt allow Cross origin requests :/

So does anyone know how I could retrieve the download url with a javascript request that doesn't get blocked by the cors policy?

Hi @fkraeutli,
Thanks for sharing the example, but how to deal with the special case using your method?

Say the content of a small file is like the following, How to avoid it to be mistakenly treated as a LFS blob?
I think there should be a API to determine whether a file is ordinary blob or LFS blob.

version https://git-lfs.github.com/spec/v1
oid sha256:{sha}
size {filesize}