Bulk uploading files

One of the most common support questions that I get is how to upload a lot of files at one time.  Not that I mind, but when I get the same question over and over it means that the documentation is lacking and I need to add it to the instructions.

There are two ways to upload files to ProofBuddy, by uploading using the Browse… buttons on the add images form and by uploading with FTP and importing.

Uploading local files
The default way to add images to your albums is also the easiest.  On the Add Images page there is a Browse… button that lets you browse to a file on your computer and select it to be uploaded.  There is also an Add More… link that will allow you to add up to 10 files using this form.

The image files that you upload need to be in JPG format.  What’s not obvious is that you can also upload a zip file containing multiple jpgs through this form.  When you upload a zip file it will be unzipped and any jpg files found inside will be added to your album.

What you will likely run into if you are uploading a lot of files this way is that most servers are not setup to allow large files to be uploaded this way.  In fact, most of the servers I’ve been on will not allow a file over 8 megs to be uploaded, and some go as small as 2 megs. 

Importing files already on the server
The other option is to use an FTP client to upload your images and then import directly from your server.  The FTP option also gets around the upload file size server limit mentioned above. 

The first step is to actually upload the files.  They must be uploaded to a folder underneath the folder where you installed ProofBuddy.  This is due to the way server permissions work.  They cannot be uploaded in the /albums/ folder however.  Personally I created a folder called /uploads/ that I use.

Like the Local Files option above, the files that you import through FTP can be either jpgs or zips.

Once the files have been uploaded you will go to the Add Images page and change the drop down under the album list from Local Files to Files on Server.

This will cause the browse fields to disappear and a new box to open with a list of the folders in your ProofBuddy folder.

You may or may not have all the folders listed above.  Odds are slim that you already have the uploads folder as I created that one after I installed ProofBuddy on my server.   Simply click on the folder where you FTP’d your files to and you will see a list like the following.

Select the files you want to import by checking the check box to the left of each file.  Or if you are importing them all you can click on the Select All link on the bottom.

Now that you have selected the images to import you can go ahead and click the Add button on the bottom of the form to import the files into the selected albums. 

Once the images are successfully imported into ProofBuddy you can delete them from where you put them with your FTP client.  ProofBuddy copies all of the resized images into subfolders of the /albums/ directory and pulls the images from there.