Zapier for Image Upload

Andrew_Enright · ‎Oct 17, 2017

Hello, I’d love some help refining a Zap such that it:

Copies a text string from an Airtable formula field to an Airtable URL field, and THEN goes to that URL (which is a hard link to an image) and uploads the image file back into an Airtable attachment field.

The use-case here is barcoding. We have a formula that is dynamically generating image URLs to barcode images. The links work fine, but I don’t yet have a way of actually pulling and uploading the barcode images we’ve linked to.

Any/all help appreciated, THANX!

Andrew_Enright · ‎Mar 01, 2018

MandM · ‎Mar 06, 2018

Hi, Sorry, but is there any chance you could elaborate on this further? Or share your zap?
When I try to add a new record (from Trello to Airtable), I am simply getting the URL… and unfortunately am unable to replicate from the description you have provided.

Much appreciated!

Andrew_Enright · ‎Mar 09, 2018

@MandM

Unfortunately I can’t really share screencaps of my Zap as they would reveal many sensitive fields. But I can say that the Zap really is as simple as auto-copying a URL (to a hosted image file) and then pasting it into a second ATTACHMENT field. It’s that latter bit that is key, you must first format the receiving field to be an image container, before auto-pasting the URL.

Good luck!

A.

Thad_K · ‎Jun 24, 2018

This worked for me, pulling from a Google Sheet with URLs into Airtable! I think Zapier is silently remembering the field type along with the ID and the name so you need to refresh the Action of the Zap if you change the field type from say, “Single line text” to “Attachment” (which is required for this to work).

Nothing much to see in Zapier. It really is just the URL going in. When there is a 404 or non-image attachment at the URL, Airtable flashes red as it gets added to the table and then it goes to blank. This makes me think Airtable is actually downloading it into an attachment, not Zapier.

The other problem I ran into: Zapier free trial only runs about 1000 tasks easily. I had to manually clear the tasks 15 by 15, until I got to 1000.

Andrew_Enright · ‎Jun 24, 2018

Agreed. Our Zap simply copies a formula-generated URL from a Formula field to an Attachments field. Airtable then does the actual “attaching”, which results in a true image attachment. So yes, it seems that the Attachments field is capable of supporting image URLS, just not via the native UI. Use of the API is required for now…

Such Zaps are easy to setup. But also easy to break as they require a trigger view. We’d much prefer the ability to copy an entire column’s worth of formula-generated image URLS and then paste it into an adjacent Attachments column.

Moe · ‎Jan 09, 2020

We built a solution for this: miniextensions.com/Convert-URLs-to-Attachments. It will process unlimited records, all existing and new ones. And you can schedule it to run regularly.

Colin_Rathbun · ‎Jul 10, 2020

Sending a URL to an Attachemen field via a ZAP was working yesterday and today has stopped working. Really don’t get it since I have another field to bring in the URL to airtable and the URL is working…

When the zap runs, I can see the attachment being added in airtable when viewing that table. paperclip ICON comes up. But then after the Icon disappears and no image is uploaded…

SteelsmithHaus · ‎Jan 07, 2022

This problem is now happening for me, and Airtable support is acting like they’ve never heard or the issue. Did it get resolved for you?