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Real-Time Streaming Systems (WebRTC + Live Data) · Lesson

File Transfer over WebRTC Data Channels

Learn how to send files peer-to-peer through WebRTC data channels, including chunking, backpressure, ordering, and progress tracking.

Beyond Chat: Sending Files

WebRTC data channels are not limited to text chat. They can carry arbitrary binary data, which makes peer-to-peer file transfer possible without uploading to a server.

This keeps large files off your infrastructure and lowers latency.

Binary Types on the Channel

A data channel can send strings or binary. For files you set binaryType so received data arrives as an ArrayBuffer.

const channel = pc.createDataChannel('file');
channel.binaryType = 'arraybuffer';

All lessons in this course

  1. Synchronizing WebRTC Metadata
  2. Real-time Chat over Data Channels
  3. Sharing Application State Live
  4. File Transfer over WebRTC Data Channels
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