Contao Summit 2026 in Leipzig 15th and 16th October

postDownload

The postDownload hook is triggered when a file is sent to the browser by Contao, e.g. by the Download(s) content elements or the enclosures in News and Events. It passes the file name and does not expect a return value.

Info

This hook is part of Contao’s legacy framework and as such is not used anymore by more modern components of Contao, e.g. the new Download(s) content elements in Contao 5. If you want to universally react to any download response by the application you should instead implement a kernel.response listener:

// src/EventListener/DownloadResponseListener.php
namespace App\EventListener;

use Symfony\Component\EventDispatcher\Attribute\AsEventListener;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\BinaryFileResponse;
use Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Event\ResponseEvent;

#[AsEventListener]
class DownloadResponseListener
{
    public function __invoke(ResponseEvent $event): void
    {
        if (!$event->isMainRequest() || !($response = $event->getResponse()) instanceof BinaryFileResponse) {
            return;
        }

        $file = $response->getFile();

        // Do something …
    }
}

Parameters

  1. string $file

    The file which has been downloaded (relative path from TL_ROOT).

Example

// src/EventListener/PostDownloadListener.php
namespace App\EventListener;

use Contao\CoreBundle\DependencyInjection\Attribute\AsHook;

#[AsHook('postDownload')]
class PostDownloadListener
{
    public function __invoke(string $file): void
    {
        // Do something …
    }
}

References