Question

If I have an HTML file input field, is there any way that I can limit it to only allow image uploads? I’m sure this would be possible with Flash or Java, but I’m trying to stay away from them for the time being.

I found the “accept” attribute online, but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything for me (or I’m using it wrong.). Any help or examples is appreciated.

Answer 1

The best way is to handle that in the backend. Depending on the type of types you want to allow and the backend technology you will find various ways of doing this.

You can also do this in javascript but you’ll be more limited and it might lead to issues crossbrowser:

if((document.form1.upload.value.lastIndexOf(".jpg")==-1) {
   alert("Please upload only .jpg extention file");
   return false;
}

(via)

If you use jquery, checkout this question: How to have jQuery restrict file types on upload?

You can also use the JQuery Validation plugin.

$("#myform").validate({
  rules: {
    field: {
      required: true,
      accept: "xls|csv"
    }
  }
});

(via)