Cloudinary Blog

Automating File Upload and Sharing

By Prosper Otemuyiwa Aug 25, 2020

As computer users, we constantly upload files, transferring them from one system to another over a network. You can perform uploads on a terminal, such as through the SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) or Secure Copy Protocol (SCP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP) clients, or web browsers. Generally, you upload files to move data to a server, but you can also send files between distributed clients.

This article explains the basics of FTP, peer-to-peer (P2P), and web-browser uploads, as well as Cloudinary’s automated upload capabilities that save time and improve workflows.

What Is a File Upload?

File uploads are cross-system data transfers. You can upload files in one of three ways:

Client-to-server upload, which transfers files according to the client-server mode, such as when you upload an image or video through a form on a website.
Remote upload, which transfers data from one remote system to another under the control of a local system, e.g., from cloud storage to a website, when the connection between the remote systems is faster than that between the local and remote systems. Additionally, you can transfer files between only the remote systems with this technique.
Peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing, which shares files between users through a decentralized network of devices. Here, each device can serve as client and server, enabling both uploads and downloads.

In this article, you will learn:

Traditional File Upload Techniques
Automating File Upload in Popular Programming Languages With Cloudinary
Learn More About Media Management

Traditional File Upload Techniques

This section describes how to upload files in the traditional way.

FTP

FTP, the language for TCP/IP networks, i.e. the Internet, is a secure way of transferring files between devices or servers and between clients and servers.

Typically, you download files from a web server with FTP. For uploads to a server, you need an FTP client, a utility through which to log in to FTP servers so that you can query the server, define transfer modes, and then upload.

Peer to Peer

P2P transfers start with a search for available connected users through a client. After a connection is made, you can download files from those users while they upload to you, or vice versa. In a P2P network, transfers occur across peers (nodes or end-user computers) with no need for distribution servers.

Napster and BitTorrent are well-known examples of P2P networks. Although they do not store file data on a central server, those networks can maintain trackers or index servers to help you locate the file you want. Also, multiple users can simultaneously upload or download the same file, speeding up the rate of transfer and easing the burden on a single user.

Web Browsers

Uploading from a web browser is the most common way for transferring files to a remote server, typically through an HTML form with the upload capabilities defined in JavaScript (JS) in either of these ways:

A jQuery plugin or JS uploader, which offers the upload capability and interface through JS or jQuery libraries. Two plugin examples are Uppy and FilePond.
A file-upload service, which offers a widget you can embed in your page for uploads, which are typically connected to a content delivery network (CDN) for delivery to users later. Cloudinary is an example of an excellent upload service.

Automating File Upload in Popular Programming Languages With Cloudinary

A common request for websites is automated file upload for audiences. Afterwards, the audience can have the uploaded files delivered securely to online storage, displayed, and, if desired, shared with others.

Cloudinary is a cloud-based service through which you can modify, manage, and distribute media; as well as automate file upload in your web apps. It only takes a few lines of code in the popular programming languages, as described below.

PHP

By leveraging the API in the Cloudinary PHP software development kit (SDK), you can upload images, manage and create sprites, embed images, and generate URLs for manipulation or transformation. This SDK supports PHP 5.3 or later.

For details, see the post Uploading PHP Files and Rich Media the Easy Way.

AJAX

To directly upload files with AJAX, create an HTML form, download Cloudinary’s JS library, and then build a JS file that defines your upload configurations.

In the same way, you can upload directly to a back-end server with AJAX along with a PHP script that handles server communications.

For details, see the post AJAX File Upload: Quick Tutorial and Time-Saving Tips.

Android

Preserving quality as files pass between the sender and receiver is a difficult task. However, apps like WhatsApp transfer media files at huge scale with hardly any quality loss. You can do that in your app, too.

For details, see the post Clone WhatsApp Technology to Build a File Upload Android App.

jQuery

With jQuery, you can upload files to the Cloudinary cloud without an intermediary server, delivering faster and bypassing web-host limitations on uploads. Also, Cloudinary’s jQuery plugin’s convenient drag-and-drop interface enables audiences to perform uploads on your site.

For details, see the post Direct Image Uploads From the Browser to the Cloud With jQuery.

Angular

You can upload files through Angular on Cloudinary by building an Angular component or form control with which to pass files to your app’s back-end. No need to expend the time and effort to develop a back-end API.

For details, see the post File Upload With Angular to Cloudinary.

Vue

By integrating with the Cloudinary widget, you can upload files in any Vue project. Just add the openUploadModal function and an Upload button and then integrate the widget in your index.html file. No back-end setup is required.

For details, see the post Uploading Vue Files and Rich Media in Two Easy Steps.

Node.js

You can upload Node.js files to the Cloudinary cloud or to a local server. To do that, download Cloudinary’s Node.js SDK and the streamifier library. Afterwards, set up a Node project and build an upload process that relies on the multer package, which enables multipart uploads..

For details, see the post Node.js File Upload.

Laravel

To upload files to local servers or the cloud through Laravel, use a file-upload controller and upload-form pair and the storeUploads method. To store uploads in the cloud, use Cloudinary’s Laravel SDK and the cloudinary() helper function.

For details, see the post Laravel File Upload to a Local Server Or to the Cloud.

Javascript

Cloudinary offers a JS upload widget whose API you can integrate with your HTML forms for uploads to the cloud. The widget supports uploads from various sources, including remote URLs and Facebook, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Shutterstock accounts.

For details, see the post JavaScript File Upload to Cloudinary.

Do give Cloudinary a try and build file-upload capabilities with the popular programming languages described above. To start, create a free Cloudinary account.

Learn More About Media Management

Cloudinary has authored in-depth guides on several media-management topics, which you might find useful while exploring the world of file upload.

Digital Asset Management (DAM)

Learn about the latest DAM trends and best practices, all of which can help you efficiently and effectively manage media assets.

Image Editing

Explore the various ways and tools for editing images, enhance your media, and automate the related processes.

Image Optimization

Learn the techniques for optimizing and adding cool effects to images while ensuring quality.

Image Formats

Adopt the optimum format for your images because the format can make or break delivery.

Responsive Images

Deliver a positive user experience with responsive images on all devices.

Video Optimization

Optimize your video so that you can efficiently edit their content, add subtitles for multilingual audiences, and create previews.

Lazy Loading

Lazy-load your webpages for optimal performance and fast video streaming.

HTML5 Video Player

Distribute video content with HTML5 players and streamers.

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