The Fetch API provides an interface for fetching resources (including across the network). It is a more powerful and flexible replacement for XMLHttpRequest.

Concepts and usage

The Fetch API uses Request and Response objects (and other things involved with network requests), as well as related concepts such as CORS and the HTTP Origin header semantics.

For making a request and fetching a resource, use the fetch() method. It is a global method in both Window and Worker contexts. This makes it available in pretty much any context you might want to fetch resources in.

The fetch() method takes one mandatory argument, the path to the resource you want to fetch. It returns a Promise that resolves to the Response to that request — as soon as the server responds with headers — even if the server response is an HTTP error status. You can also optionally pass in an init options object as the second argument (see Request).

Once a Response is retrieved, there are a number of methods available to define what the body content is and how it should be handled.

You can create a request and response directly using the Request() and Response() constructors, but it's uncommon to do this directly. Instead, these are more likely to be created as results of other API actions (for example, FetchEvent.respondWith() from service workers).

Find out more about using the Fetch API features in Using Fetch.

Deferred Fetch

The fetchLater() API enables a developer to request a deferred fetch, that can be sent after a specified period of time, or when the page is closed or navigated away from. See Using Deferred Fetch.

Interfaces

Window.fetch() and WorkerGlobalScope.fetch()

The fetch() method used to fetch a resource.

Window.fetchLater()

Used to make a deferred fetch request.

DeferredRequestInit

Represents the set of options that can be used to configure a deferred fetch request.

FetchLaterResult

Represents the result of requesting a deferred fetch.

Headers

Represents response/request headers, allowing you to query them and take different actions depending on the results.

Request

Represents a resource request.

Response

Represents the response to a request.

HTTP headers

deferred-fetch

Controls the top-level quota for the fetchLater() API.

deferred-fetch-minimal

Controls the shared cross-origin subframe quota for the fetchLater() API.

Specifications

Browser compatibility

api.fetch

api.Window.fetchLater

See also

• Using Fetch
• Service Worker API
• HTTP access control (CORS)
• HTTP
• Local network access