Every file download counts against your Salesforce API requests limit. Monitor usage programmatically or filter queries strictly (e.g., WHERE CreatedDate = TODAY ).
Implement try-except blocks around the requests.get call to handle network drops and expired Salesforce sessions.
The modern standard. It holds the actual binary file data for files uploaded to the Files tab or Chatter. download file from salesforce using python
If your org still uses legacy attachments, query the Attachment object instead. The actual file content is stored in the Body field URI.
Requires a Client ID, Client Secret, and Redirect URI (recommended for production). Step 1: Establish a Salesforce Connection Every file download counts against your Salesforce API
The legacy object used for files attached directly to standard or custom object records.
Salesforce stores files in different objects depending on the architecture: The modern standard
def download_legacy_attachments(sf, output_dir="./attachments"): os.makedirs(output_dir, exist_ok=True) # Query legacy attachments query = "SELECT Id, Name, Body FROM Attachment" results = sf.query_all(query) for record in results['records']: file_name = record['Name'] body_url = record['Body'] file_path = os.path.join(output_dir, file_name) print(f"Downloading Attachment: {file_name}...") # Fetch file body response = requests.get( f"{sf.base_url}{body_url}", headers=sf.headers, stream=True ) if response.status_code == 200: with open(file_path, 'wb') as f: for chunk in response.iter_content(chunk_size=1024): f.write(chunk) print(f"Saved to {file_path}") else: print(f"Failed to download attachment {file_name}") # Execute download download_legacy_attachments(sf) Use code with caution. Handling Large Volumes and API Limits