Extend with JavaScript - Filesystem - Docs

PocketBase comes with a thin abstraction between the local filesystem and S3.

To configure which one will be used you can adjust the storage settings from Dashboard > Settings > Files storage section.

The filesystem abstraction can be accessed programmatically via the $app.newFilesystem() method.

Below are listed some of the most common operations but you can find more details in the filesystem.System interface.

Always make sure to call close() at the end for both the created filesystem instance and the retrieved file readers to prevent leaking resources.

Reading files

To retrieve the file content of a single stored file you can use getFile(key) .
Note that file keys often contain a prefix (aka. the "path" to the file). For record files the full key is collectionId/recordId/filename.
To retrieve multiple files matching a specific prefix you can use list(prefix) .

The below code shows a minimal example how to retrieve the content of a single record file as string.

let record = $app.findAuthRecordByEmail("users", "test@example.com")

// construct the full file key by concatenating the record storage path with the specific filename
let avatarKey = record.baseFilesPath() + "/" + record.get("avatar")

let fsys, file, content;

try {
    // initialize the filesystem
    fsys = $app.newFilesystem();

    // retrieve a file reader for the avatar key
    file = fsys.getFile(avatarKey)

    // copy as plain string
    content = toString(file)
} finally {
    file?.close();
    fsys?.close();
} 

Saving files

There are several methods to save (aka. write/upload) files depending on the available file content source:

Most users rarely will have to use the above methods directly because for collection records the file persistance is handled transparently when saving the record model (it will also perform size and MIME type validation based on the collection file field options). For example:

let record = $app.findRecordById("articles", "RECORD_ID")

// Other available File factories
// - $filesystem.fileFromBytes(content, name)
// - $filesystem.fileFromURL(url)
// - $filesystem.fileFromMultipart(mfh)
let file = $filesystem.fileFromPath("/local/path/to/file")

// set new file (can be single or array of File values)
// (if the record has an old file it is automatically deleted on successful save)
record.set("yourFileField", file)

$app.save(record) 

Deleting files

Files can be deleted from the storage filesystem using delete(key) .

Similar to the previous section, most users rarely will have to use the delete file method directly because for collection records the file deletion is handled transparently when removing the existing filename from the record model (this also ensure that the db entry referencing the file is also removed). For example:

let record = $app.findRecordById("articles", "RECORD_ID")

// if you want to "reset" a file field (aka. deleting the associated single or multiple files)
// you can set it to null
record.set("yourFileField", null)

// OR if you just want to remove individual file(s) from a multiple file field you can use the "-" modifier
// (the value could be a single filename string or slice of filename strings)
record.set("yourFileField-", "example_52iWbGinWd.txt")

$app.save(record) 