Quick start

Uploadcare lets you upload, store, and deliver your files to end users. Also, you can use tools to transform and optimize images, process videos, convert documents, etc. Let's do some of this without further ado.

Uploading

You can add File Uploader to your website in about five minutes. It'll work in any browser on computers and mobile devices. Upload files of any size (up to 5 TB) from local disc, social media and popular storage services (Dropbox, Google Photos, etc.).

The power of an Uploadcare ecosystem is hidden behind a simple Upload button:

Add File Uploader on your website by adding this code into your page's <HEAD>:

<script>UPLOADCARE_PUBLIC_KEY = "demopublickey";</script>
<script src="https://ucarecdn.com/libs/widget/3.x/uploadcare.full.min.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Use your UPLOADCARE_PUBLIC_KEY instead of demopublickey after you sign up. It points to a specific project in your Uploadcare account.

When the JS library is added on the page, use it in <BODY> to place an upload button:

<input type="hidden" role="uploadcare-uploader" name="my_file" />

You can customize the button and the Uploader dialog appearance to match your website style. Refer to the File Uploader documentation, and to the File Uploader API.

Storage

All uploads go to your primary storage at Uploadcare. Every uploaded file gets its own UUID:

36cda64e-7f8c-4e54-89f0-6a7b1d90a8dd

All files are stored in your project until you delete them. This feature is called Auto storing and it's on by default. When you switch it off, and newly uploaded files will be deleted after 24 hours. Still, you can keep individual files by explicitly storing them via API.

Delivery

Uploadcare has a CDN as a basic delivery method,

https://ucarecdn.com/:uuid/

You can apply CDN operations over the file URLs:

https://ucarecdn.com/:uuid/-/:operation/:params/:filename

Transformations are be applied on the fly, at the moment of a user's request. Original media stays intact. Processed file versions get cached on the CDN nodes and don't take any space in your storage, yet they make these pages load faster in the future for similar requests.

Processing

Uploadcare provides various transformation and intelligence features.

Let's apply smart crop, smart compression, and enhance features,

https://ucarecdn.com/:uuid/-/scale_crop/1024x1024/smart/-/format/auto/-/quality/smart/-/enhance/:filename

Original, 5120x2244 13,5 MB.

Transformed image with scale, crop, and compression

Transformed, 1024x1024 1,8 MB.

Try using the Adaptive Delivery JS library to skip this step by automatically adapting images to user context: location, device, and browser.

Next steps

These are just basics of what you can do with Uploadcare. Create an account, check out our integrations, guides, and APIs. Post your questions in our Community and feel free to contact us whenever you need.