File Uploads & Storage

Last modified on: September 4, 2025

<h1 data-start="128" data-end="165">📂 Laravel File Uploads &amp; Storage</h1>
<p data-start="167" data-end="423">File uploads and storage are <strong data-start="196" data-end="213">core features</strong> in modern applications. Whether it&rsquo;s <strong data-start="251" data-end="301">profile pictures, documents, images, or videos</strong>, Laravel makes it simple to handle file uploads and manage them with its <strong data-start="375" data-end="393">Storage facade</strong> and filesystem integration.</p>
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<h2 data-start="430" data-end="459">🛠 1. File Upload Basics</h2>
<h3 data-start="461" data-end="484">HTML Form Example</h3>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>&lt;form action="{{ route('file.upload') }}" method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data"&gt;
    @csrf
    &lt;input type="file" name="file"&gt;
    &lt;button type="submit"&gt;Upload&lt;/button&gt;
&lt;/form&gt;</code></pre>
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<h3 data-start="683" data-end="694">Route</h3>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>Route::post('/upload', [FileController::class, 'upload'])-&gt;name('file.upload');</code></pre>
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<h3 data-start="788" data-end="804">Controller</h3>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class FileController extends Controller
{
    public function upload(Request $request)
    {
        $request-&gt;validate([
            'file' =&gt; 'required|mimes:jpg,png,pdf|max:2048'
        ]);

$path = $request-&gt;file('file')-&gt;store('uploads');

return back()-&gt;with('success', 'File uploaded at ' . $path);
    }
}</code></pre>
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<p data-start="1212" data-end="1261">✅ File will be stored in <code data-start="1237" data-end="1258">storage/app/uploads</code>.</p>
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<h2 data-start="1268" data-end="1296">🛠 2. Custom File Names</h2>
<pre class="language-php"><code>$filename = time() . '.' . $request-&gt;file('file')-&gt;getClientOriginalExtension();
$path = $request-&gt;file('file')-&gt;storeAs('uploads', $filename);</code></pre>
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<h2 data-start="1459" data-end="1492">🛠 3. Public Access to Files</h2>
<p data-start="1494" data-end="1563">By default, files are stored in <code data-start="1526" data-end="1539">storage/app</code>. To make them public:</p>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>php artisan storage:link</code></pre>
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<div class="overflow-y-auto p-4" dir="ltr"><code class="whitespace-pre! language-bash">php artisan storage:<span class="hljs-built_in">link</span>
</code></div>
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<p data-start="1603" data-end="1660">Now <code data-start="1607" data-end="1627">storage/app/public</code> is linked to <code data-start="1641" data-end="1657">public/storage</code>.</p>
<p data-start="1662" data-end="1681">Upload to public:</p>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>$request-&gt;file('file')-&gt;store('uploads', 'public');</code></pre>
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<p data-start="1747" data-end="1772">Access file in browser:</p>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>http://yourapp.test/storage/uploads/filename.jpg</code></pre>
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<h2 data-start="1837" data-end="1879">🛠 4. Working with the Storage Facade</h2>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;

// Store
Storage::put('docs/file.txt', 'Hello Laravel');

// Get content
$content = Storage::get('docs/file.txt');

// Check if file exists
if (Storage::exists('docs/file.txt')) {
    echo "File exists";
}

// Delete file
Storage::delete('docs/file.txt');</code></pre>
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<h2 data-start="2195" data-end="2227">🛠 5. Multiple File Uploads</h2>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>&lt;input type="file" name="files[]" multiple&gt;</code></pre>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>foreach ($request-&gt;file('files') as $file) {
    $file-&gt;store('uploads');
}</code></pre>
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<h2 data-start="2380" data-end="2406">🛠 6. File Validation</h2>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>$request-&gt;validate([
    'file' =&gt; 'required|mimes:jpg,jpeg,png,gif|max:2048'
]);</code></pre>
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<p data-start="2504" data-end="2530"><code data-start="2504" data-end="2511">mimes</code> &rarr; restrict types</p>
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<p data-start="2533" data-end="2564"><code data-start="2533" data-end="2538">max</code> &rarr; limit file size in KB</p>
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<h2 data-start="2571" data-end="2609">🛠 7. Retrieving File Information</h2>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>$file = $request-&gt;file('file');

$originalName = $file-&gt;getClientOriginalName();
$extension = $file-&gt;getClientOriginalExtension();
$size = $file-&gt;getSize();
$mime = $file-&gt;getMimeType();</code></pre>
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<h2 data-start="2815" data-end="2839">🛠 8. Storage Disks</h2>
<p data-start="2841" data-end="2879">Defined in <code data-start="2852" data-end="2876">config/filesystems.php</code>:</p>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>'disks' =&gt; [
    'local' =&gt; [
        'driver' =&gt; 'local',
        'root' =&gt; storage_path('app'),
    ],
    'public' =&gt; [
        'driver' =&gt; 'local',
        'root' =&gt; storage_path('app/public'),
        'url' =&gt; env('APP_URL').'/storage',
        'visibility' =&gt; 'public',
    ],
    's3' =&gt; [
        'driver' =&gt; 's3',
        'key' =&gt; env('AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID'),
        'secret' =&gt; env('AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY'),
        'region' =&gt; env('AWS_DEFAULT_REGION'),
        'bucket' =&gt; env('AWS_BUCKET'),
    ],
],</code></pre>
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<h2 data-start="3410" data-end="3443">🛠 9. Uploading to Amazon S3</h2>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>$request-&gt;file('file')-&gt;store('uploads', 's3');

// Generate file URL
$url = Storage::disk('s3')-&gt;url('uploads/filename.jpg');</code></pre>
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<h2 data-start="3589" data-end="3618">🛠 10. Downloading Files</h2>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>return Storage::download('uploads/file.pdf');</code></pre>
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<h2 data-start="3683" data-end="3704">🛠 11. File URLs</h2>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>$url = Storage::url('uploads/file.jpg');</code></pre>
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<h2 data-start="3764" data-end="3791">🛠 12. Streaming Files</h2>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>return Storage::response('uploads/file.txt');</code></pre>
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<h2 data-start="3856" data-end="3877">✅ Best Practices</h2>
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<p data-start="3881" data-end="3916">Always validate file type &amp; size.</p>
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<p data-start="3919" data-end="3964">Store user uploads in <code data-start="3941" data-end="3961">storage/app/public</code>.</p>
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<p data-start="3967" data-end="4018">Use <strong data-start="3971" data-end="4000">S3 or DigitalOcean Spaces</strong> for large apps.</p>
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<p data-start="4021" data-end="4070">Store <strong data-start="4027" data-end="4046">file path in DB</strong>, not the actual file.</p>
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<p data-start="4073" data-end="4116">Use queues for <strong data-start="4088" data-end="4113">large file processing</strong>.</p>
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<h1 data-start="4123" data-end="4146">🔹 Example Use Case</h1>
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<p data-start="4151" data-end="4181">User uploads profile picture</p>
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<p data-start="4185" data-end="4245">Laravel validates &rarr; stores in <code data-start="4215" data-end="4243">storage/app/public/uploads</code></p>
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<p data-start="4249" data-end="4300">File path saved in database (<code data-start="4278" data-end="4297">users.profile_pic</code>)</p>
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<p data-start="4304" data-end="4365">Frontend displays via <code data-start="4326" data-end="4363">asset('storage/uploads/'.$filename)</code></p>
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