Creating a BLOB from a Base64 string in JavaScript

Question

I have Base64-encoded binary data in a string:

const contentType = \'image/png\';
const b64Data = \'iVBORw0KGg         


        

Answer 1

Here is a more minimal method without any dependencies or libraries.
It requires the new fetch API. (Can I use it?)

var url = "data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAUAAAAFCAYAAACNbyblAAAAHElEQVQI12P4//8/w38GIAXDIBKE0DHxgljNBAAO9TXL0Y4OHwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg=="

fetch(url)
.then(res => res.blob())
.then(console.log)

With this method you can also easily get a ReadableStream, ArrayBuffer, text, and JSON.
(fyi this also works with node-fetch in Node)

As a function:

const b64toBlob = (base64, type = 'application/octet-stream') => 
  fetch(`data:${type};base64,${base64}`).then(res => res.blob())

---

I did a simple performance test towards Jeremy's ES6 sync version.
The sync version will block UI for a while. keeping the devtool open can slow the fetch performance

document.body.innerHTML += ''
// get some dummy gradient image
var img=function(){var a=document.createElement("canvas"),b=a.getContext("2d"),c=b.createLinearGradient(0,0,1500,1500);a.width=a.height=3000;c.addColorStop(0,"red");c.addColorStop(1,"blue");b.fillStyle=c;b.fillRect(0,0,a.width,a.height);return a.toDataURL()}();


async function perf() {
  
  const blob = await fetch(img).then(res => res.blob())
  // turn it to a dataURI
  const url = img
  const b64Data = url.split(',')[1]

  // Jeremy Banks solution
  const b64toBlob = (b64Data, contentType = '', sliceSize=512) => {
    const byteCharacters = atob(b64Data);
    const byteArrays = [];
    
    for (let offset = 0; offset < byteCharacters.length; offset += sliceSize) {
      const slice = byteCharacters.slice(offset, offset + sliceSize);
      
      const byteNumbers = new Array(slice.length);
      for (let i = 0; i < slice.length; i++) {
        byteNumbers[i] = slice.charCodeAt(i);
      }
      
      const byteArray = new Uint8Array(byteNumbers);
      
      byteArrays.push(byteArray);
    }
    
    const blob = new Blob(byteArrays, {type: contentType});
    return blob;
  }

  // bench blocking method
  let i = 500
  console.time('b64')
  while (i--) {
    await b64toBlob(b64Data)
  }
  console.timeEnd('b64')
  
  // bench non blocking
  i = 500

  // so that the function is not reconstructed each time
  const toBlob = res => res.blob()
  console.time('fetch')
  while (i--) {
    await fetch(url).then(toBlob)
  }
  console.timeEnd('fetch')
  console.log('done')
}

perf()