ngx-dropzone

This library provides a reusable dropzone component infrastructure and Material Design implementation. Like the Angular Material repo, it uses a monorepo setup for maximum extensibility.

Package	Description
@ngx-dropzone/cdk	Common dropzone interaction patterns.
@ngx-dropzone/material	Material Design implementation based on the CDK.

While the CDK itself is basically headless, the Material implementation relies on the Angular Material components to provide a consistent style integration. See the DEMO for an example.

Installation

You may only want to install the dropzone CDK to apply your own styling.

npm install @ngx-dropzone/cdk

For the Material Design implementation, install both packages.

npm install @ngx-dropzone/cdk @ngx-dropzone/material

Versioning

For the versioning, we stay consistent with the major Angular releases. So Angular (components) 19 will be compatible with @ngx-dropzone/cdk@19.x.x.

Please note, that v16 is the first officially supported version. For older Angular releases, use the libs at your own risk.

Basic usage

This describes how to use the Material dropzone. If you want to extend the CDK with your own styling, see below.

// in app.component.ts
import { MatFormField, MatLabel } from '@angular/material/form-field';
import { MatIcon } from '@angular/material/icon';
import { FileInputDirective } from '@ngx-dropzone/cdk';
import { MatDropzone } from '@ngx-dropzone/material';

@Component({
  ...
  imports: [
    MatFormField,
    MatLabel,
    MatIcon,
    MatDropzone,
    FileInputDirective,
  ],
  ...
})

Now you can use it in your markup.

<mat-form-field appearance="fill">
  <mat-label>Drop anything!</mat-label>
  <ngx-mat-dropzone>
    <input type="file" fileInput />
  </ngx-mat-dropzone>
  <mat-icon matSuffix color="primary">cloud_upload</mat-icon>
</mat-form-field>

Use the webkitdirectories attribute to support uploading folders. All files from subdirectories will be provided as a flat File[], but with an additional relativePath property to keep tree structures.

Usage with FormControl and validation

The fileInput directive on the <input type="file" /> element makes it a valid target for [(ngModel)] and [formControl] directives, so you can seamlessly integrate the file upload into your form.

First, make sure to import the ReactiveFormsModule. Then, you're able to define your form control element (incl. validation).

// in app.component.ts
import { ReactiveFormsModule } from '@angular/forms';

@Component({
  selector: "form-control-dropzone",
  imports: [
    ReactiveFormsModule,
    MatError,
    ...
  ],
  template: `
    <mat-form-field>
      <ngx-mat-dropzone>
        <input type="file" fileInput [formControl]="profileImg" />
      </ngx-mat-dropzone>
      <mat-error>Invalid file type</mat-error>
    </mat-form-field>
  `,
})
class DropzoneWithFormControl {
  validators = [FileInputValidators.accept("image/*")];
  profileImg = new FormControl<FileInputValue>(null, this.validators);
}

In the example above, you may have noticed two new classes, the FileInputValidators and FileInputValue.

The FileInputValue is just a type alias for File | File[] | null being the possible values for the form control. Please note that a File[] is only valid, if the multiple attribute is set on the <input type="file" /> element.

The FileInputValidators provides custom validator functions for files.

Validator	Description
FileInputValidators.accept	Defines accepted file types.
FileInputValidators.minSize	Sets the required minimum file size in bytes.
FileInputValidators.maxSize	Sets the maximum allowed file size in bytes.

File Previews

In case you want to give a consistent user feedback about the selected files, we recommend to use the Material Chips.

⚠️ Please note that no other file preview will be provided by this lib, because people are way too opinionated about their styling and behaviour.

<mat-form-field appearance="fill">
  <mat-label>Drop anything!</mat-label>
  <ngx-mat-dropzone>
    <input type="file" fileInput [formControl]="fileCtrl" />
    @if (fileCtrl.value) {
    <mat-chip-row (removed)="clear()">
      {{ fileCtrl.value.name }}
      <button matChipRemove>
        <mat-icon>cancel</mat-icon>
      </button>
    </mat-chip-row>
    }
  </ngx-mat-dropzone>
  <mat-icon matSuffix color="primary">cloud_upload</mat-icon>
</mat-form-field>

export class AppComponent {
  fileCtrl = new FormControl();

  clear() {
    this.fileCtrl.setValue(null);
  }
}

Configuration

Now that we have seen the minimal setup, here are some configuration options for the component markup.

FileInput directive

Property	Description	Options
accept	Defines the accepted file types.	See here
mode	On select, either replace (default) or append the new files. Works only with multiple attribute.	replace or append
multiple	Allow multiple files to be selected.	Boolean
disabled	Disables any interaction.	Boolean

Material dropzone

Property	Description
required	Sets the native required property.
placeholder	The placeholder text has no effect, use <mat-label /> instead.

Development server

Make sure you have Bun installed as a drop-in replacement for npm.

Run bun run start:[cdk|material] to build and watch for changes on the library packages.

Run bun run start:app for an example app dev server to test changes locally. Navigate to http://localhost:4200/. The app will automatically reload if you change any of the source files.

Other available commands are bun run [build|test|lint]:[cdk|material].

Extensibility

This library provides a ready-to-use Material Design implementation for the dropzone. However, you might want to apply your own custom styling (or library).

In this case, you're able to build upon the dropzone CDK. See the Material dropzone as an example.

The basic setup requires you to extend the DropzoneComponent in your app to apply your own styling and functionality. Use the following skeleton as a starting point. You may always have a look at the Material reference implementation linked above.

import { Component } from "@angular/core";
import { AcceptService, DropzoneComponent, DropzoneService, FileInputDirective } from "@ngx-dropzone/cdk";

@Component({
  selector: "my-dropzone",
  imports: [FileInputDirective, DropzoneComponent],
  providers: [DropzoneService, AcceptService],
  template: `
    <div class="my-dropzone">
      <ng-content select="[fileInput]"></ng-content>
    </div>
  `,
  styles: [
    `
      .my-dropzone {
        cursor: pointer;
        text-align: center;
        padding: 40px;
        background: platinum;
        border: 1px solid black;
      }

      .dragover > .my-dropzone {
        border-width: 2px;
      }
    `,
  ],
})
export class MyDropzone extends DropzoneComponent {}

Contributing

Code of Conduct

Please read our Code of Conduct to keep our community open and respectable. 💖

Want to Help?

Want to report a bug, contribute some code, or improve the documentation? Excellent! Read up on our guidelines for contributing and then check out one of our issues labeled as help wanted or good first issue.

Security

If you believe you have found a security vulnerability, we encourage you to responsibly disclose this and not open a public issue. Security issues in this open source project can be safely reported via hackingharold@mailbox.org.

License

This project is MIT-licensed.