File Storage
- Introduction
- Configuration
- Obtaining Disk Instances
- Retrieving Files
- Storing Files
- Deleting Files
- Directories
- Custom Filesystems
Introduction
Laravel provides a powerful filesystem abstraction thanks to the wonderful Flysystem PHP package by Frank de Jonge. The Laravel Flysystem integration provides simple drivers for working with local filesystems, SFTP, and Amazon S3. Even better, it's amazingly simple to switch between these storage options between your local development machine and production server as the API remains the same for each system.
Configuration
Laravel's filesystem configuration file is located at config/filesystems.php
. Within this file, you may configure all of your filesystem "disks". Each disk represents a particular storage driver and storage location. Example configurations for each supported driver are included in the configuration file so you can modify the configuration to reflect your storage preferences and credentials.
The local
driver interacts with files stored locally on the server running the Laravel application while the s3
driver is used to write to Amazon's S3 cloud storage service.
{tip} You may configure as many disks as you like and may even have multiple disks that use the same driver.
The Local Driver
When using the local
driver, all file operations are relative to the root
directory defined in your filesystems
configuration file. By default, this value is set to the storage/app
directory. Therefore, the following method would write to storage/app/example.txt
:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
Storage::disk('local')->put('example.txt', 'Contents');
The Public Disk
The public
disk included in your application's filesystems
configuration file is intended for files that are going to be publicly accessible. By default, the public
disk uses the local
driver and stores its files in storage/app/public
.
To make these files accessible from the web, you should create a symbolic link from public/storage
to storage/app/public
. Utilizing this folder convention will keep your publicly accessible files in one directory that can be easily shared across deployments when using zero down-time deployment systems like Envoyer.
To create the symbolic link, you may use the storage:link
Artisan command:
php artisan storage:link
Once a file has been stored and the symbolic link has been created, you can create a URL to the files using the asset
helper:
echo asset('storage/file.txt');
You may configure additional symbolic links in your filesystems
configuration file. Each of the configured links will be created when you run the storage:link
command:
'links' => [
public_path('storage') => storage_path('app/public'),
public_path('images') => storage_path('app/images'),
],
Driver Prerequisites
Composer Packages
Before using the S3 or SFTP drivers, you will need to install the appropriate package via the Composer package manager:
- Amazon S3:
composer require --with-all-dependencies league/flysystem-aws-s3-v3 "^1.0"
- SFTP:
composer require league/flysystem-sftp "~1.0"
In addition, you may choose to install a cached adapter for increased performance:
- CachedAdapter:
composer require league/flysystem-cached-adapter "~1.0"
S3 Driver Configuration
The S3 driver configuration information is located in your config/filesystems.php
configuration file. This file contains an example configuration array for an S3 driver. You are free to modify this array with your own S3 configuration and credentials. For convenience, these environment variables match the naming convention used by the AWS CLI.
FTP Driver Configuration
Laravel's Flysystem integrations work great with FTP; however, a sample configuration is not included with the framework's default filesystems.php
configuration file. If you need to configure an FTP filesystem, you may use the configuration example below:
'ftp' => [
'driver' => 'ftp',
'host' => 'ftp.example.com',
'username' => 'your-username',
'password' => 'your-password',
// Optional FTP Settings...
// 'port' => 21,
// 'root' => '',
// 'passive' => true,
// 'ssl' => true,
// 'timeout' => 30,
],
SFTP Driver Configuration
Laravel's Flysystem integrations work great with SFTP; however, a sample configuration is not included with the framework's default filesystems.php
configuration file. If you need to configure an SFTP filesystem, you may use the configuration example below:
'sftp' => [
'driver' => 'sftp',
'host' => 'example.com',
'username' => 'your-username',
'password' => 'your-password',
// Settings for SSH key based authentication...
'privateKey' => '/path/to/privateKey',
'password' => 'encryption-password',
// Optional SFTP Settings...
// 'port' => 22,
// 'root' => '',
// 'timeout' => 30,
],
Amazon S3 Compatible Filesystems
By default, your application's filesystems
configuration file contains a disk configuration for the s3
disk. In addition to using this disk to interact with Amazon S3, you may use it to interact with any S3 compatible file storage service such as MinIO or DigitalOcean Spaces.
Typically, after updating the disk's credentials to match the credentials of the service you are planning to use, you only need to update the value of the url
configuration option. This option's value is typically defined via the AWS_ENDPOINT
environment variable:
'endpoint' => env('AWS_ENDPOINT', 'https://minio:9000'),
Caching
To enable caching for a given disk, you may add a cache
directive to the disk's configuration options. The cache
option should be an array of caching options containing the disk
name, the expire
time in seconds, and the cache prefix
:
's3' => [
'driver' => 's3',
// Other Disk Options...
'cache' => [
'store' => 'memcached',
'expire' => 600,
'prefix' => 'cache-prefix',
],
],
Obtaining Disk Instances
The Storage
facade may be used to interact with any of your configured disks. For example, you may use the put
method on the facade to store an avatar on the default disk. If you call methods on the Storage
facade without first calling the disk
method, the method will automatically be passed to the default disk:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
Storage::put('avatars/1', $content);
If your application interacts with multiple disks, you may use the disk
method on the Storage
facade to work with files on a particular disk:
Storage::disk('s3')->put('avatars/1', $content);
On-Demand Disks
Sometimes you may wish to create a disk at runtime using a given configuration without that configuration actually being present in your application's filesystems
configuration file. To accomplish this, you may pass a configuration array to the Storage
facade's build
method:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
$disk = Storage::build([
'driver' => 'local',
'root' => '/path/to/root',
]);
$disk->put('image.jpg', $content);
Retrieving Files
The get
method may be used to retrieve the contents of a file. The raw string contents of the file will be returned by the method. Remember, all file paths should be specified relative to the disk's "root" location:
$contents = Storage::get('file.jpg');
The exists
method may be used to determine if a file exists on the disk:
if (Storage::disk('s3')->exists('file.jpg')) {
// ...
}
The missing
method may be used to determine if a file is missing from the disk:
if (Storage::disk('s3')->missing('file.jpg')) {
// ...
}
Downloading Files
The download
method may be used to generate a response that forces the user's browser to download the file at the given path. The download
method accepts a filename as the second argument to the method, which will determine the filename that is seen by the user downloading the file. Finally, you may pass an array of HTTP headers as the third argument to the method:
return Storage::download('file.jpg');
return Storage::download('file.jpg', $name, $headers);
File URLs
You may use the url
method to get the URL for a given file. If you are using the local
driver, this will typically just prepend /storage
to the given path and return a relative URL to the file. If you are using the s3
driver, the fully qualified remote URL will be returned:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
$url = Storage::url('file.jpg');
When using the local
driver, all files that should be publicly accessible should be placed in the storage/app/public
directory. Furthermore, you should create a symbolic link at public/storage
which points to the storage/app/public
directory.
{note} When using the
local
driver, the return value ofurl
is not URL encoded. For this reason, we recommend always storing your files using names that will create valid URLs.
Temporary URLs
Using the temporaryUrl
method, you may create temporary URLs to files stored using the s3
driver. This method accepts a path and a DateTime
instance specifying when the URL should expire:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
$url = Storage::temporaryUrl(
'file.jpg', now()->addMinutes(5)
);
If you need to specify additional S3 request parameters, you may pass the array of request parameters as the third argument to the temporaryUrl
method:
$url = Storage::temporaryUrl(
'file.jpg',
now()->addMinutes(5),
[
'ResponseContentType' => 'application/octet-stream',
'ResponseContentDisposition' => 'attachment; filename=file2.jpg',
]
);
URL Host Customization
If you would like to pre-define the host for URLs generated using the Storage
facade, you may add a url
option to the disk's configuration array:
'public' => [
'driver' => 'local',
'root' => storage_path('app/public'),
'url' => env('APP_URL').'/storage',
'visibility' => 'public',
],
File Metadata
In addition to reading and writing files, Laravel can also provide information about the files themselves. For example, the size
method may be used to get the size of a file in bytes:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
$size = Storage::size('file.jpg');
The lastModified
method returns the UNIX timestamp of the last time the file was modified:
$time = Storage::lastModified('file.jpg');
File Paths
You may use the path
method to get the path for a given file. If you are using the local
driver, this will return the absolute path to the file. If you are using the s3
driver, this method will return the relative path to the file in the S3 bucket:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
$path = Storage::path('file.jpg');
Storing Files
The put
method may be used to store file contents on a disk. You may also pass a PHP resource
to the put
method, which will use Flysystem's underlying stream support. Remember, all file paths should be specified relative to the "root" location configured for the disk:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
Storage::put('file.jpg', $contents);
Storage::put('file.jpg', $resource);
Automatic Streaming
Streaming files to storage offers significantly reduced memory usage. If you would like Laravel to automatically manage streaming a given file to your storage location, you may use the putFile
or putFileAs
method. This method accepts either an Illuminate\Http\File
or Illuminate\Http\UploadedFile
instance and will automatically stream the file to your desired location:
use Illuminate\Http\File;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
// Automatically generate a unique ID for filename...
$path = Storage::putFile('photos', new File('/path/to/photo'));
// Manually specify a filename...
$path = Storage::putFileAs('photos', new File('/path/to/photo'), 'photo.jpg');
There are a few important things to note about the putFile
method. Note that we only specified a directory name and not a filename. By default, the putFile
method will generate a unique ID to serve as the filename. The file's extension will be determined by examining the file's MIME type. The path to the file will be returned by the putFile
method so you can store the path, including the generated filename, in your database.
The putFile
and putFileAs
methods also accept an argument to specify the "visibility" of the stored file. This is particularly useful if you are storing the file on a cloud disk such as Amazon S3 and would like the file to be publicly accessible via generated URLs:
Storage::putFile('photos', new File('/path/to/photo'), 'public');
Prepending & Appending To Files
The prepend
and append
methods allow you to write to the beginning or end of a file:
Storage::prepend('file.log', 'Prepended Text');
Storage::append('file.log', 'Appended Text');
Copying & Moving Files
The copy
method may be used to copy an existing file to a new location on the disk, while the move
method may be used to rename or move an existing file to a new location:
Storage::copy('old/file.jpg', 'new/file.jpg');
Storage::move('old/file.jpg', 'new/file.jpg');
File Uploads
In web applications, one of the most common use-cases for storing files is storing user uploaded files such as photos and documents. Laravel makes it very easy to store uploaded files using the store
method on an uploaded file instance. Call the store
method with the path at which you wish to store the uploaded file:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
class UserAvatarController extends Controller
{
/**
* Update the avatar for the user.
*
* @param \Illuminate\Http\Request $request
* @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
*/
public function update(Request $request)
{
$path = $request->file('avatar')->store('avatars');
return $path;
}
}
There are a few important things to note about this example. Note that we only specified a directory name, not a filename. By default, the store
method will generate a unique ID to serve as the filename. The file's extension will be determined by examining the file's MIME type. The path to the file will be returned by the store
method so you can store the path, including the generated filename, in your database.
You may also call the putFile
method on the Storage
facade to perform the same file storage operation as the example above:
$path = Storage::putFile('avatars', $request->file('avatar'));
Specifying A File Name
If you do not want a filename to be automatically assigned to your stored file, you may use the storeAs
method, which receives the path, the filename, and the (optional) disk as its arguments:
$path = $request->file('avatar')->storeAs(
'avatars', $request->user()->id
);
You may also use the putFileAs
method on the Storage
facade, which will perform the same file storage operation as the example above:
$path = Storage::putFileAs(
'avatars', $request->file('avatar'), $request->user()->id
);
{note} Unprintable and invalid unicode characters will automatically be removed from file paths. Therefore, you may wish to sanitize your file paths before passing them to Laravel's file storage methods. File paths are normalized using the
League\Flysystem\Util::normalizePath
method.
Specifying A Disk
By default, this uploaded file's store
method will use your default disk. If you would like to specify another disk, pass the disk name as the second argument to the store
method:
$path = $request->file('avatar')->store(
'avatars/'.$request->user()->id, 's3'
);
If you are using the storeAs
method, you may pass the disk name as the third argument to the method:
$path = $request->file('avatar')->storeAs(
'avatars',
$request->user()->id,
's3'
);
Other Uploaded File Information
If you would like to get the original name and extension of the uploaded file, you may do so using the getClientOriginalName
and getClientOriginalExtension
methods:
$file = $request->file('avatar');
$name = $file->getClientOriginalName();
$extension = $file->getClientOriginalExtension();
However, keep in mind that the getClientOriginalName
and getClientOriginalExtension
methods are considered unsafe, as the file name and extension may be tampered with by a malicious user. For this reason, you should typically prefer the hashName
and extension
methods to get a name and an extension for the given file upload:
$file = $request->file('avatar');
$name = $file->hashName(); // Generate a unique, random name...
$extension = $file->extension(); // Determine the file's extension based on the file's MIME type...
File Visibility
In Laravel's Flysystem integration, "visibility" is an abstraction of file permissions across multiple platforms. Files may either be declared public
or private
. When a file is declared public
, you are indicating that the file should generally be accessible to others. For example, when using the S3 driver, you may retrieve URLs for public
files.
You can set the visibility when writing the file via the put
method:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
Storage::put('file.jpg', $contents, 'public');
If the file has already been stored, its visibility can be retrieved and set via the getVisibility
and setVisibility
methods:
$visibility = Storage::getVisibility('file.jpg');
Storage::setVisibility('file.jpg', 'public');
When interacting with uploaded files, you may use the storePublicly
and storePubliclyAs
methods to store the uploaded file with public
visibility:
$path = $request->file('avatar')->storePublicly('avatars', 's3');
$path = $request->file('avatar')->storePubliclyAs(
'avatars',
$request->user()->id,
's3'
);
Local Files & Visibility
When using the local
driver, public
visibility translates to 0755
permissions for directories and 0644
permissions for files. You can modify the permissions mappings in your application's filesystems
configuration file:
'local' => [
'driver' => 'local',
'root' => storage_path('app'),
'permissions' => [
'file' => [
'public' => 0664,
'private' => 0600,
],
'dir' => [
'public' => 0775,
'private' => 0700,
],
],
],
Deleting Files
The delete
method accepts a single filename or an array of files to delete:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
Storage::delete('file.jpg');
Storage::delete(['file.jpg', 'file2.jpg']);
If necessary, you may specify the disk that the file should be deleted from:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
Storage::disk('s3')->delete('path/file.jpg');
Directories
Get All Files Within A Directory
The files
method returns an array of all of the files in a given directory. If you would like to retrieve a list of all files within a given directory including all subdirectories, you may use the allFiles
method:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
$files = Storage::files($directory);
$files = Storage::allFiles($directory);
Get All Directories Within A Directory
The directories
method returns an array of all the directories within a given directory. Additionally, you may use the allDirectories
method to get a list of all directories within a given directory and all of its subdirectories:
$directories = Storage::directories($directory);
$directories = Storage::allDirectories($directory);
Create A Directory
The makeDirectory
method will create the given directory, including any needed subdirectories:
Storage::makeDirectory($directory);
Delete A Directory
Finally, the deleteDirectory
method may be used to remove a directory and all of its files:
Storage::deleteDirectory($directory);
Custom Filesystems
Laravel's Flysystem integration provides support for several "drivers" out of the box; however, Flysystem is not limited to these and has adapters for many other storage systems. You can create a custom driver if you want to use one of these additional adapters in your Laravel application.
In order to define a custom filesystem you will need a Flysystem adapter. Let's add a community maintained Dropbox adapter to our project:
composer require spatie/flysystem-dropbox
Next, you can register the driver within the boot
method of one of your application's service providers. To accomplish this, you should use the extend
method of the Storage
facade:
<?php
namespace App\Providers;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;
use League\Flysystem\Filesystem;
use Spatie\Dropbox\Client as DropboxClient;
use Spatie\FlysystemDropbox\DropboxAdapter;
class AppServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
/**
* Register any application services.
*
* @return void
*/
public function register()
{
//
}
/**
* Bootstrap any application services.
*
* @return void
*/
public function boot()
{
Storage::extend('dropbox', function ($app, $config) {
$client = new DropboxClient(
$config['authorization_token']
);
return new Filesystem(new DropboxAdapter($client));
});
}
}
The first argument of the extend
method is the name of the driver and the second is a closure that receives the $app
and $config
variables. The closure must return an instance of League\Flysystem\Filesystem
. The $config
variable contains the values defined in config/filesystems.php
for the specified disk.
Once you have created and registered the extension's service provider, you may use the dropbox
driver in your config/filesystems.php
configuration file.