Data URI Scheme

The data URI scheme is a URI scheme (Uniform Resource Identifier scheme) that provides a way to include data in-line in web pages as if they were external resources. This technique allows normally separate elements such as images and style sheets to be fetched in a single HTTP request rather than multiple HTTP requests, which can be more efficient.

Data URIs tends to be simpler than other inclusion methods, such as MIME with cid or mid URIs. Data URIs are sometimes called Uniform Resource Locators, although they do not actually locate anything remote. The data URI scheme is defined in RFC 2397 of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

In browsers that fully support Data URIs for "navigation", Javascript generated content can be provided as file "download" to the user, simply by setting window.location.href to a Data URI. One example is the conversion of HTML tables to downloadable CSV using a Data URI like this: 'data:text/csv;charset=UTF-8,' + encodeURIComponent(csv), where "csv" has been generated by Javascript.

The IETF published the data URI specification in 1998 as Proposed Standard on the IETF Standards Track, and hasn't progressed it since. The HTML 4.01 specification refers to the data URI scheme, and data URIs have now been implemented in most browsers.