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:hammer_and_wrench: If you use Airtable to manage images or videos in your app or website, you might have noticed that attachment URLs (from the “Attachments” field) expire after about 2 hours. This behavior was introduced for security reasons and can cause problems with displaying multimedia content in your applications.

:white_check_mark: The solution: use Cloudinary with Zapier or Make

To overcome this limitation, I implemented a workflow that uses Cloudinary together with Zapier (or Make) to obtain permanent and public URLs for images or videos. Here’s how it works:

  1. Trigger: When a record with an attachment is created or updated in Airtable.
  2. File extraction: Zapier retrieves the file via the Airtable URL from the “Attachments” field.
  3. Upload to Cloudinary: The file URL is uploaded to Cloudinary, which provides a public and permanent URL.
  4. Record update: The Airtable record is updated with the new URL provided by Cloudinary.

This process ensures that images and videos are always publicly accessible, without worrying about Airtable URL expiration.

:wrench: How to implement it

You can configure this workflow using Zapier by following these steps:

  1. Trigger: “New Record in Airtable” or “Updated Record in Airtable”.
  2. Action: “Upload File” in Cloudinary.
  3. Action: “Update Record” in Airtable to save the public URL.

Alternatively, you can use Make to achieve the same result with a similar configuration.

:camera_flash: Practical examples

To help you with the setup, I’m attaching some images showing the automation in Zapier and the database structure in Airtable:

  • Screenshot of the workflow in Zapier
  • Example of an Airtable record with the “Attachments” field and the field with the public URL

I hope this solution can help you better manage multimedia content in your app or website developed with Softr and Airtable.

 

 

Thank you for that AI-generated solution from ChatGPT.

Yes, this is a well-known solution that most people use.

Cloudinary is a very good choice for cloud storage. However, instead of using Cloudinary which can be pricey & unfamiliar to many people, most people in the community are using Google Drive to do this, because Google Drive is typically free, widely-known, and commonly shared with other users.

Also, as ChatGPT mentioned near the end there, most people in the community prefer using Make’s advanced automations instead of Zapier, because Make is INFINITELY more powerful & customizable than Zapier, yet it is SIGNIFICANTLY CHEAPER than Zapier. I wrote an entire post here comparing Make vs. Zapier.

Please see screenshot below for how this could look in Make.

(Note that the screenshot below will work for one attachment per record, but would need to be slightly modified if dealing with multiple attachments per record. Also, the screenshot starts with a webhook, so you can instantly trigger the automation from Airtable.)

If you’ve never used Make before, I’ve assembled a bunch of Make training resources in this thread. For example, here is one of the ways that you could instantly trigger a Make automation from Airtable.

Hope this helps! If you’d like to hire the best Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld

 

Thank you for that AI-generated solution from ChatGPT.

 🔥🔥🔥🔥

I don’t get the point of these posts and the other recent spam. Like what SEO are you trying to game on the Airtable Community Forum? 

Also, I’m gonna take a moment and gripe about all the zombie thread advertising. I check this forum every workday, and often half the most recent threads are posts from 1-5 years ago that somebody just vibe coded a “solution” for, even if the post was marked solved already. I come here to try and help people problem solve, but I’m left sorting through a bunch of already solved problems. Just find it annoying 🤷‍♂️ 

I agree, ​@DisraeliGears01!

I feel the pain ​@DisraeliGears01. Most of the time tools are not even related (sometimes they don’t even include a url but just write two sentences about some complete random thing).

I’m reporting spam as much as I can 💪

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