Quick start

Uploadcare is a hassle-free file infrastructure. We cover every aspect of your file handling.

Uploads

You can upload files right in a browser on any device. Your local storage, social media or a cloud can be a source for those uploads. That is done with Uploadcare File Uploader. What you get by default is a button,

You can add the File Uploader to a page with just three lines of code,

<!-- The best place for this is your <HEAD> tag -->
<script>UPLOADCARE_PUBLIC_KEY = "demopublickey";</script>
<script src="https://ucarecdn.com/libs/widget/3.x/uploadcare.full.min.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<!-- And this is how you set the place on a page where the file uploader will appear. Do not miss the name attribute -->
<input type="hidden" role="uploadcare-uploader" name="my_file" />

File Uploader works as a simple form element and lets you upload any file types including images, videos, PDFs, and other documents. We support files of up to 5TB in size and ensure their reliable and fast uploading with our distributed uploads network.

You have probably noticed UPLOADCARE_PUBLIC_KEY was set to demopublickey. The public key points to an Uploadcare project your uploads go to. Change demopublickey to a public_key of any project in your dashboard to route the file uploads there.

Storage

All uploads go to our storage, and you receive unique file identifiers (UUIDs),

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

Our demo account stores files for 24 hours, because to keep files until they're explicitly removed you should store them. You can use autostore feature for your project in project settings, or set it explicitly while uploading with Upload API, or change it by making a request to our REST API.

Delivery

Uploadcare has a smart CDN that powers the delivery of every file uploaded to your account,

https://ucarecdn.com/:uuid/

CDN operations are applied to files by including URL directives in their respective CDN URLs:

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

Your files are cached on multiple servers. Versions of your files are created on-the-fly and don't affect your storage.

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, 1024x1024 1,8 MB.

Try using our new Adaptive Delivery JS SDK to skip this step by automatically adapting images to user context: location, device, browser, and more!

Next steps

Don’t spend weeks on what you can do in minutes. Create an account, check out our integrations, guides, and APIs. If you have any questions — post them in our Community Area.