With the following streaming code, the Python memory usage is restricted regardless of the size of the downloaded file:
def download_file(url): local_filename = url.split('/')[-1] # NOTE the stream=True parameter below with requests.get(url, stream=True) as r: r.raise_for_status() with open(local_filename, 'wb') as f: for chunk in r.iter_content(chunk_size=8192): # If you have chunk encoded response uncomment if # and set chunk_size parameter to None. #if chunk: f.write(chunk) return local_filename
Note that the number of bytes returned using iter_content
is not exactly the chunk_size
; it’s expected to be a random number that is often far bigger, and is expected to be different in every iteration.
See body-content-workflow and Response.iter_content for further reference.