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Upload Field

The Upload Field allows for the selection of a Document from a Collection supporting Uploads, and formats the selection as a thumbnail in the Admin Panel.

Upload fields are useful for a variety of use cases, such as:

  • To provide a Page with a featured image
  • To allow for a Product to deliver a downloadable asset like PDF or MP3
  • To give a layout building block the ability to feature a background image
Shows an upload field in the Payload Admin Panel
Admin Panel screenshot of an Upload field

To create an Upload Field, set the type to upload in your Field Config:

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import type { Field } from 'payload'
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export const MyUploadField: Field = {
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// ...
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type: 'upload',
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relationTo: 'media',
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}

Config Options

OptionDescription
name *To be used as the property name when stored and retrieved from the database. More
relationTo *Provide a single collection slug to allow this field to accept a relation to. Note: the related collection must be configured to support Uploads.
filterOptionsA query to filter which options appear in the UI and validate against. More.
hasManyBoolean which, if set to true, allows this field to have many relations instead of only one.
minRowsA number for the fewest allowed items during validation when a value is present. Used with hasMany.
maxRowsA number for the most allowed items during validation when a value is present. Used with hasMany.
maxDepthSets a number limit on iterations of related documents to populate when queried. Depth
labelText used as a field label in the Admin Panel or an object with keys for each language.
uniqueEnforce that each entry in the Collection has a unique value for this field.
validateProvide a custom validation function that will be executed on both the Admin Panel and the backend. More
indexBuild an index for this field to produce faster queries. Set this field to true if your users will perform queries on this field's data often.
saveToJWTIf this field is top-level and nested in a config supporting Authentication, include its data in the user JWT.
hooksProvide Field Hooks to control logic for this field. More details.
accessProvide Field Access Control to denote what users can see and do with this field's data. More details.
hiddenRestrict this field's visibility from all APIs entirely. Will still be saved to the database, but will not appear in any API or the Admin Panel.
defaultValueProvide data to be used for this field's default value. More
displayPreviewEnable displaying preview of the uploaded file. Overrides related Collection's displayPreview option. More.
localizedEnable localization for this field. Requires localization to be enabled in the Base config.
requiredRequire this field to have a value.
adminAdmin-specific configuration. Admin Options.
customExtension point for adding custom data (e.g. for plugins)
typescriptSchemaOverride field type generation with providing a JSON schema
virtualProvide true to disable field in the database. See Virtual Fields

* An asterisk denotes that a property is required.

Example

collections/ExampleCollection.ts

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import type { CollectionConfig } from 'payload'
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export const ExampleCollection: CollectionConfig = {
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slug: 'example-collection',
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fields: [
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{
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name: 'backgroundImage', // required
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type: 'upload', // required
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relationTo: 'media', // required
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required: true,
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},
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],
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}

Filtering upload options

Options can be dynamically limited by supplying a query constraint, which will be used both for validating input and filtering available uploads in the UI.

The filterOptions property can either be a Where query, or a function returning true to not filter, false to prevent all, or a Where query. When using a function, it will be called with an argument object with the following properties:

PropertyDescription
relationToThe collection slug to filter against, limited to this field's relationTo property
dataAn object containing the full collection or global document currently being edited
siblingDataAn object containing document data that is scoped to only fields within the same parent of this field
idThe id of the current document being edited. id is undefined during the create operation
userAn object containing the currently authenticated user

Example

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const uploadField = {
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name: 'image',
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type: 'upload',
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relationTo: 'media',
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filterOptions: {
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mimeType: { contains: 'image' },
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},
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}

You can learn more about writing queries here.

Bi-directional relationships

The upload field on its own is used to reference documents in an upload collection. This can be considered a "one-way" relationship. If you wish to allow an editor to visit the upload document and see where it is being used, you may use the join field in the upload enabled collection. Read more about bi-directional relationships using the Join field

Next

The Admin Panel