Workaround the file size limit of Softr for Airtable

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1

Hi everyone,

I’m new to everything here and really do not have that much experience in using scripts.

We’re looking for ways to as much as possible natively have users upload huge file attachments directly to airtable. A problem we’re facing is proper identification of who is uploading the data since its in an embedded form. We are trying to avoid having to ask users for their emails and/or other information again since they’ve already provided those when they were signing up.

Are there ways to automatically populate the fields in the airtable forms or limit what they can see? Or do you know of any other way we can work around the file size limit in softr attachments?

Thanks in advance

2

Welcome to the community, @jackrojas !

Hmm, this is a tough one. Huge file attachments are a hard one to deal with, and really depends on how big the attachment really is. If the attachment is 500mb or less, than airtable is probably fine. But much bigger than that and I would look towards another solution to store that attachment, while saving the URL to that attachment in your airtable base, personally.

I’d also use a form in Softr to create this functionality, and use hidden fields to send the data from Softr to Airtable to ensure the data is stored correctly. I’d also advise to place this upload behind a “authentication flow” to ensure they are users of your platform. Simply put, huge attachments eat up storage volume and cost a lot, and you dont want random users uploading huge files because it will be costly!

Hope this is helpful!

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3

Hi,

This might help you: Guide: Create a file size and a file type limitation for file uploads

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Thanks for the welcome @Jjenglert !

Yeah, for our use case, its going to be mostly short raw videos - so maybe around 500mb or less. The alternative of us letting the user share a URL of where they’ve stored the videos instead is something we have not considered too. I’ll check if this is something the team will consider.

Using a softr form was our initial approach to doing this - even using hidden fields so they will not need to input their details again once logged-in. The problem is the file size limit of uploads. Since we’re dealing will files over 128mb, we started exploring alternate solutions.

Thanks for the help. These insights can really help us decide how to proceed.

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Yes, videos are hard. Whenever I’ve done this in the past, I’ve used a vendor like MUX.com to host and stream my videos for me to ensure the playback experience is great. Otherwise, your videos will buffer for the user a lot and wont be a good experience.

Maybe Mux has an uploader that you can embed into Softr?