Upload Files to Firebase Storage with JavaScript

Firebase; being a robust Realtime Database solution; it provides Storage of files as well. Learn how to upload files to Firebase Storage with JavaScript in simple steps

Pankaj

Oct 15, 2017 • 3 min read

Last updated: 7 Jan 2023 • 3 min read

Firebase has proved itself to be a very robust Real-time Database solution, and with new API, it provides File Storage as well.

This reduces the Server-side headache of handling files to a bare minimum.

We will be going through a simple application to upload images to the Firebase Hosting along with some basic CRUD operations and authentication with Firebase. As we have already covered both topics on the following location, we will be concentrating more on the file upload.

If you are looking for how to upload files to PHP, you can read:
Upload files to PHP backend using fetch and FormData

Steps:

The basic process for file upload is

create a firebase storage reference

const ref = firebase.storage().ref();

Now get the file to be uploaded from the input[type="file"]

const file = $('#photo').get(0).files[0];
OR
const file = document.querySelector('#photo').files[0];

Now prepare the filename and metadata for the uploaded file
Filename we can quickly get the name of the file being uploaded by the name property of the file being uploaded as follows const name = file.name; but it is not a good idea to keep the file name as only identifier; we will use the timestamp as well at the beginning of the file name as follows

const name = (+new Date()) + '-' + file.name;

Metadata needs the object which should contain contentType key. contentType is the file type which can be taken from the file.type

const metadata = { contentType: file.type };

Create the file upload task, which will be handled by the .put() method on the storage child. This task is a Promise, and hence we can efficiently operate on this task later const task = ref.child(name).put(file, metadata); The task also supports the following methods to handle file upload:

// Pause the upload
task.pause();

// Resume the upload
task.resume();

// Cancel the upload
task.cancel();

Use the response of file upload.

task
  .then(snapshot => snapshot.ref.getDownloadURL())
  .then(url => console.log(url))

As in the above steps, the file upload is complete, though there are a few things to notice:

You can save the downloadURL of the uploaded file like above; or you can save the fire ref and use it later to get the download URL like as follows

const image = ref.child('kingsman.jpg');
const urlPromise = image.getDownloadURL();
urlPromise.then(url => {
   document.querySelector('#someImageTagID').src = url;
}

There can be many cases of error that you will need to handle in the upload task by the .catch() method of promise like as follows:

task
  .then(snapshot => snapshot.ref.getDownloadURL())
  .then((url) => {
     document.querySelector('#someImageTagID').src = url;
  })
  .catch((error) => {
     // A full list of error codes is available at
     // https://firebase.google.com/docs/storage/web/handle-errors
     switch (error.code) {
       case 'storage/unauthorized':
         // User doesn't have permission to access the object
         break;
       case 'storage/canceled':
         // User canceled the upload
         break;
       ...
       case 'storage/unknown':
         // Unknown error occurred, inspect error.serverResponse
         break;
     }
   });

All properties of the returned snapshot are:

Property	Type	Writable
bucket	string	NO
generation	string	NO
metageneration	string	NO
fullPath	string	NO
name	string	NO
size	number	NO
timeCreated	string	NO
updated	string	NO
md5Hash	string	YES
on upload	-	NO
on updateMetadata	-	NO
cacheControl	string	YES
contentDisposition	string	YES
contentEncoding	string	YES
contentLanguage	string	YES
contentType	string	YES
downloadURLs	Array	NO
customMetadata	Object	YES

Final Code:

const ref = firebase.storage().ref();
const file = document.querySelector('#photo').files[0]
const name = (+new Date()) + '-' + file.name;
const metadata = {
  contentType: file.type
};
const task = ref.child(name).put(file, metadata);
task
  .then(snapshot => snapshot.ref.getDownloadURL())
  .then((url) => {
    console.log(url);
    document.querySelector('#someImageTagID').src = url;
  })
  .catch(console.error);

Demo:

The movie DB demo, which we created in earlier posts, is now equipped with the moviePoster upload as well.

Demo Download

Upload multiple files to Firebase in a single Batch:

Conclusion

Let me know through comments 💬 or on Twitter at @heypankaj_ and/or @time2hack

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Steps:

Final Code:

Demo:

Conclusion

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