New Data Type: Image URL

I have been experimenting with trying to achieve this very thing using a URL to a JPG file stored on Google Drive. I was able to successfully link to a thumbnail view of the image, but nothing more.

I think the attribute of the file on Google Drive was called “Thumbnail Link”.

I was just thinking of this one last week. Specifically if Airtable has access to iCloud Drive where I keep all my project images (not Apple Photos), for obvious reasons.

I also support that idea as it will be a good way to generate barcode and/or QR Code for printing and then scan with the new barcode field type.
Therefore a formula using image(URL) function (like in google spreadsheet) will best answer my needs as the URL has to be built dynamically (based on content of other fields).

Google provide webservice to generate QR (https://developers.google.com/chart/image/docs/chart_playground)
and I found this webservice for Barcodes (http://www.barcodes4.me/apidocumentation)

This seems extremely useful and I can see myself using it a lot.

This would be fantastic, especially if you could combine it with a lookup field so you could auto-pull images using a naming convention. Using a URL like this for example:

http://www.example.com/products/{NameField}/images/hero-image. jpg

Seconded for supporting thumbnail views of externally hosted images. This would be super helpful for museums and other collections-based organizations that likely already have a digital asset management system. Not to mention the fact it would drastically lighten your server load.

I don’t think a new field type would be required—would just require adding another option in the attachments field dialog.

Agreed, this could be huge for any company that manages an ECOM website with standardized URL- and image-naming schemas. It’d effectively allow Airtable to become a lightweight DAM client.

We also see huge potential for barcodes/QRs, dynamically created based on lookups. Hear, hear!

Alternatively, I would suggest support for some simple HTML in the URL Field. We could use formulas to wrap image links in <img src=.

Either way, we could do things like collect Google Static Maps: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/static-maps/intro

Yes! Support for this feature.

Google sheets supports this feature as well

Yes, I would also love this feature, for instance, feeding from google sheets, via Zapier, a bunch of links that then display as thumbnails. Does not seem to happen right now.

I want to add my vote for this feature as well. Would be incredibly useful for my organization.

+1 Agree. This feature would be really useful. I can export user URL thumbnail from another service, but can’t actually see the pics.

+1 I’m also voting for this feature request. Another idea on how to implement this is by introducing a new IMAGE function. Something like Google Sheet’s IMAGE function. You pass the URL on this function and then it displays the image on the cell of Google Sheet.

+1 for this feature. Not being able to (automatically) display images from URLs is obviously a huge pain for everyone here!

+1 for this. AirTable is great but it has incredibly limited support for sheets with pictures or images. I had to learn how to be an Excel VBS Rocket Scientist just to export images in a logical way that I could import into AirTable since CSV doesn’t support images.

hi David, how did you do it? i want to do the same thing too!

Unfortunately the process didn’t quite work like I had anticipated. It was an incredibly obnoxious process, and it may work better for you. Given the complexity of my situation it did not work. These are the steps I had to go through since AirTable doesn’t inherently support image upload with XSLX files.

1. Run script that saves all Excel images and names the file based on the row it’s in (example 1.png, 12.png, 55.png etc). The script is on Stack overflow, I’ll paste it in here when I can. I’m having trouble logging in to my account right now.

2. Save original Excel file as CSV

3. Upload original Excel file.

4. Manually upload images 1 by 1 into the column they are named after.

OR, if you are ok with linked images rather than having the image thumbnail appear on your sheet, you can bulk upload all the images into a new gallery view and use a linked column to manually link each image to their associated row. It’s mostly all manual.

It sucks.

David did you have the script for this?

Image upload is such a pain in air table, I have a ton of image URL assets that I’d like to port in but can’t…

I would really like the image URL preview link so I can just use my own file attachments instead

The only thing I could possibly think of for uploading images into Airtable is the following workflow:

1. Open up Airtable spreadsheet
2. Open up Regular spreadsheet with URL images to port in
3. Run a Mouse / Keyboard automation macro that grabs each item one by one, puts it over to the airtable link, checks PIXELS for upload successes, and then does each image one by one.

This would assume my airtable spreadsheet and regularspreadsheet have a 1:1 relationship, or that I could use a CTRL+F search for the same primary keys each one shares to grab the image URL

I can’t think of a better way to do this. Not even sure if this would even work correctly either

I would like to see what your script looks like though on SO

EDIT

for anyone reading this I ended up making a autohotkey macro on this thread:

+1 for this feature! I’m so used to =IMAGE(“URL”) on regular spreadsheets.

+1 I understand that this might be contrary to the AirTable pricing model to allow us to store our images in other clouds rather than uploading them, but there are so many other services that do this (google sheets etc.), I can’t imagine storage is the only way for AirTable to ensure that people purchase plans. In fact, I would pay for the ability to link directly to images stored on BOX or Dropbox, or a simple URL link.
There seem to be many people who want this. Can we get an official reply on why it is not implemented?

+1 This would be incredibly useful in automating our marketing reports

You can use a multi-step zap to copy an image URL created via formula to a true URL/link field, and then also an attachment field. When the attachment field contains a URL to an image, it will display it in-line. We use this to generate and display barcodes.

This is a great solution and thank you for sharing. I will definitely be using it.

It does annoy me that it works with zaps but not when importing a csv or pasting the URL in the attachment field. I have a list of 9000+ products that I’d have to run nicely timed zaps to get those images there and still would be a time saver–I already have ways to use Zapier to populate images for these existing products but it would be great not to use the 9000 tasks and simply paste, in a way that makes it more consistent with the Zapier action (which to ignorant me is like pasting the value in the field)