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Photo storage connects your site to the cloud storage where your photos are kept. Once it’s connected, a photo feed can pull a fresh set of photos from it on a schedule and fill a gallery for you. Who can do this: Admins and Owners.

Before you start

  • You need a storage bucket that holds your photos. A bucket is a storage space you rent from a cloud storage service. The service must be Amazon S3 or one that works like it (it says “S3-compatible”), such as Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, DigitalOcean Spaces or MinIO. A shared folder in Google Drive, Dropbox or iCloud won’t work.
  • In your storage service, create an access key that can only read that bucket: it must be able to list the bucket’s files and read them. Feeds never change or delete anything in your storage, so they don’t need more. If someone else manages your storage, ask them for a read-only key with those two permissions.
  • Have these at hand: the bucket’s name, its region, the access key ID and the secret access key. For services other than Amazon S3, you also need the service’s address, which its own docs give you.

Connect your storage

1

Open Connections

In the toolbar, choose Connections. The toolbar is the bar across the top of your site once you’re signed in; see The toolbar. Or open the command palette (⌘K, or Ctrl+K on Windows) and choose Connections. The shortcut is T then E (press T, let go, then press E, while you’re not typing in a box; see Keyboard shortcuts).
2

Open the card

Under Social and photos, choose Photo storage.
The Connections window open on the Photo storage card: the card title and purpose line "Cloud storage buckets your Photo Feeds read photos from.", the Not set up badge.The Connections window open on the Photo storage card: the card title and purpose line "Cloud storage buckets your Photo Feeds read photos from.", the Not set up badge.

The Photo storage card, under Social and photos.

3

Add a connection

Choose Edit Photo source connections, then add an item.
4

Fill it in

  • Name: what to call this storage, such as “Daily photo uploads”. You pick it by this name when you build a feed.
  • Provider: Amazon S3 / S3-compatible. It covers every service listed above.
  • Bucket name: the bucket that holds your photos.
  • Region: the bucket’s region. It starts as us-east-1. For Cloudflare R2, type “auto”.
  • The address field below Region: your storage service’s own address, not a photo’s link. Leave it empty for Amazon S3. For any other service, paste the address its docs give you. For Cloudflare R2 it looks like https://<account>.r2.cloudflarestorage.com.
  • Access key ID and Secret access key: the read-only key you created.
  • Use path-style URLs: a compatibility setting that only some services need. Leave it off for Amazon S3 and Cloudflare R2. Turn it on only if your service’s setup docs say to, as MinIO’s do.
One photo source connection filled in: Name "Daily photo uploads", Provider Amazon S3 / S3-compatible, Bucket name "parkers-daily-photos", Region us-west-2.One photo source connection filled in: Name "Daily photo uploads", Provider Amazon S3 / S3-compatible, Bucket name "parkers-daily-photos", Region us-west-2.

One connection per bucket. The key only needs to read.

5

Save

Choose Save in the list window to keep the list, then choose Save at the top right of the Connections window to save everything. The card’s badge turns to Connected and shows how many buckets are connected.
The Photo storage card after saving: the storage service's logo, the Connected badge, the line "1 bucket", and the Edit Photo source connections button.The Photo storage card after saving: the storage service's logo, the Connected badge, the line "1 bucket", and the Edit Photo source connections button.

Connected, with one bucket.

What happens next

Your storage is ready for feeds. Build one in the Photo Feeds list and choose this connection as its Photo source connection. See Photo feeds. Anyone with the Refresh photo feeds permission can then refresh a feed by hand. Editors, Admins and Owners have it.

Good to know

  • Your secret stays secret. After you save, the Secret access key shows as dots marked “Saved and encrypted”. Nobody can read it again, you included. Choose Replace to change it, or Remove to clear it.
  • Saving without touching the secret keeps it. You can change the name or region and save. The stored secret stays as it was.
  • You can connect several buckets. Add one connection per bucket, even from different services. Each feed picks its own, so each gallery can draw from a different place.
  • Changing a key takes effect on the next refresh. Feeds look up the connection each time they refresh, so you don’t need to touch the feeds.
  • Your originals are never changed. Feeds only read from your storage. They copy photos into your media library, resized and with location and camera details removed.

Troubleshooting

The feed couldn’t reach your storage. Open the feed’s Status tab and read Last message. Most often one of these is wrong:
  • the Bucket name or Region;
  • the address field (empty for Amazon S3, filled for every other service);
  • the access key, or what it’s allowed to read. It must be able to list the bucket and read its files.
Fix the connection here, choose Save, then refresh the feed again.
Connections is for Admins and Owners. If you need a storage connection, ask one of them to add it for you.
Amazon S3 / S3-compatible covers any storage that works like Amazon S3. Most cloud storage services do. Check your service’s docs for “S3-compatible” and the address to use. If yours doesn’t offer it, contact Fetchski Support.

Photo feeds

build a feed that reads from this storage.

Gallery

show a feed on a page.

Media library folders

where feed photos land.

Connections

every outside service in one place.