Bulk file upload / record and attachment creation

[Sean_Anderson]

Hi I’m trying to upload a large number of PDFs as attachments while creating new records. I have 100~ named folders with 1-3 PDFs each inside them. I am attempting to use the gallery view to upload all of the file folders simultaneously and create a new record for each folder that will have a Name text primary field that corresponds to each file folder as well as the PDFs within those folders automatically linked in the record’s attachment field.

Should I use a script to do this? Is there an upload functionality that already does this? What is the best way to go about this process? I have these file folders stored on both an online server and stored locally if that gives me more options on solving the problem.

Thanks

[kuovonne]

Welcome to the community!

A script can create new records and upload attachments. However, all the attachments need to be available online with a known url for each file to be attached. It cannot read the directories of the server to find the filenames.

Scripting block cannot access the local file system in bulk. It can only input local files one at a time with user involvement.

One option is to create a CSV file of the folder names and .pdf file urls. Then write a script that inputs the CSV file, creates the records, and attaches the .pdf files.

[ScottWorld]

@Sean_Anderson You may want to check out this extension, which lets you bulk upload attachments (even multiple attachments per record) if you already have a URL for each attachment. For example, Dropbox and Google Drive will give you URLs for each attachment:

miniExtensions

Convert URLs to Attachments in Bulk on Airtable - miniExtensions

A tool to convert URLs to Airtable attachments in bulk with a single click. File format can be images, PDFs, etc. Supports scheduling & webhooks.

So you’d still have to do a lot of prep work ahead of time to prepare the upload, but afterwards, this tool could get you most of the way there.

As far as giving your records a name in a text field upon upload: you could actually create a formula field that equals the attachment field. That would yield the full filename + URL. Then, you could further refine the formula to extract the name of the file to the left of the .pdf extension.

@Moe: Do you have an extension that can pull filenames into text fields upon attachment upload?

[Moe]

ScottWorld:

@Moe: Do you have an extension that can pull filenames into text fields upon attachment upload?

Not yet, but added to the list!