How to upload a file with Postman

When you’re developing a web API with file uploading, you can use Postman to send files in test requests. This simplifies development because you don’t have to write your own client-side code for sending the test requests.

In this article, I’ll show how to upload a file with Postman by posting a file in a multipart/form-data request.

1 – Create a POST request

In Postman, create a new request by clicking the plus (+) button:

Set the method to POST, and fill in the request URL:

In this example, I’m testing a web API that’s running locally.

2 – Add a file as form data

In the Body tab, select the form-data option. Then hover your mouse over the row so you can see a dropdown appear that says Text. Click this dropdown and set it to File.

Fill in the key name. If the web API is receiving the file with a parameter / property, then make sure this key name matches the parameter name. Finally, click the Select Files button (the name may be different depending on which version of Postman you’re using):

Clicking Select Files will open a file selection dialog window. Select one or more files. Now you’ll see the selected filename(s) in the Value column:

3 – Send the request

Click the Send button to send the request.

This sends the following multipart/form-data request:

POST /files/
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=--------------------------569733738458136444864833
Content-Length: 7265
 
----------------------------569733738458136444864833
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file"; filename="class-hierarchy-diagram.png"
Content-Type: image/png

<class-hiearchy-diagram.png bytes>
----------------------------569733738458136444864833--Code language: plaintext (plaintext)

Note: Excluded irrelevant headers for brevity.

In this example, the web API returns the following response:

200-OK
Content-Type: text/plain
Body: Saved file class-hierarchy-diagram.png with size in bytes 7041Code language: plaintext (plaintext)