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I want to write a simple basic authentication with fetch, but I keep getting a 401 error. It would be awesome if someone tells me what's wrong with the code:
let base64 = require('base-64');
let url = 'http://eu.httpbin.org/basic-auth/user/passwd';
let username = 'user';
let password = 'passwd';
let headers = new Headers();
//headers.append('Content-Type', 'text/json');
headers.append('Authorization', 'Basic' + base64.encode(username + ":" + password));
fetch(url, {method:'GET',
headers: headers,
//credentials: 'user:passwd'
.then(response => response.json())
.then(json => console.log(json));
//.done();
headers.set('Authorization', 'Basic ' + Buffer.from(username + ":" + password).toString('base64'));
Browser
headers.set('Authorization', 'Basic ' + btoa(username + ":" + password));
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In pure JavaScript you can also use btoa instead of base64.encode():
headers.set('Authorization', 'Basic ' + btoa(username + ":" + password));
Note that this will only work with ASCII characters.
If you have to handle different encodings, see the linked btoa documentation.
A simple example for copy-pasting into Chrome console:
fetch('https://example.com/path', {method:'GET',
headers: {'Authorization': 'Basic ' + btoa('login:password')}})
.then(response => response.json())
.then(json => console.log(json));
or with await:
let response = await fetch('https://example.com/path', {method:'GET',
headers: {'Authorization': 'Basic ' + btoa('login:password')}});
let data = await response.json();
console.log(data);
If you have a backend server asking for the Basic Auth credentials before the app then this is sufficient, it will re-use that then:
fetch(url, {
credentials: 'include',
}).then(...);
npm install base-64 --save
import { encode } from "base-64";
const response = await fetch(URL, {
method: 'post',
headers: new Headers({
'Authorization': 'Basic ' + encode(username + ":" + password),
'Content-Type': 'application/json'
body: JSON.stringify({
"PassengerMobile": "xxxxxxxxxxxx",
"Password": "xxxxxxx"
const posts = await response.json();
Don't forget to define this whole function as async
get request with authorization for React Native Mobile application, i have spent more time searching for these lines inside fetch
var base64 = require("base-64"); // install it before use from npm i base-64
const uname = "some username goes here";
const pword = "some password goes here";
const getMovies = async () => {
try {
const response = await fetch(
"API URL goes here",
headers: {
Authorization: "Basic " + base64.encode(uname + ":" + pword),
data = await response.json();
setData(data);
console.log(data);
// console.log(data.name);
return data;
} catch (error) {
console.error(error);
} finally {
setLoading(false);
useEffect(() => {
getMovies();
}, []);
// other code
// inside return
<FlatList
keyExtractor={(item) => item.id}
data={data}
renderItem={({ item }) => (
<View style={styles.text_container}>
<Text>{item.name}</Text>
<Text>{item.images[0].name}</Text>
<Text>{item.images[0].src}</Text>
</View>
I'll share a code which has Basic Auth Header form data request body,
let username = 'test-name';
let password = 'EbQZB37gbS2yEsfs';
let formdata = new FormData();
let headers = new Headers();
formdata.append('grant_type','password');
formdata.append('username','testname');
formdata.append('password','qawsedrf');
headers.append('Authorization', 'Basic ' + base64.encode(username + ":" + password));
fetch('https://www.example.com/token.php', {
method: 'POST',
headers: headers,
body: formdata
}).then((response) => response.json())
.then((responseJson) => {
console.log(responseJson);
this.setState({
data: responseJson
.catch((error) => {
console.error(error);
This is not directly related to the initial issue, but probably will help somebody.
I faced same issue when was trying to send similar request using domain account. So mine issue was in not escaped character in login name.
Bad example:
'ABC\username'
Good example:
'ABC\\username'
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