Uploading your files

You can upload files via:

• Browser - simply drag and drop folders or files into your account.
• REST API - the recommended method for programmatic uploads and file management.
• FTP - a popular method for uploading lots of folders or files.
• S3 - an alternative to FTP and secure API uploads.

Sirv supports all types of file including images, video, PDF, CSS, JavaScript and other static file types. See the full list of supported file formats.

Browser upload

All browsers support file uploads to your account and most also support folder uploads.

To upload a file, either drag and drop your images into your account or click the "Upload" button near the top right of your account.

REST API upload

The Sirv REST API is a fast, secure and reliable way to upload files to your Sirv account.

Documentation:

• Example upload scripts
• Upload API documentation

User the REST API for all kinds of file management tasks (move, copy, rename, delete, add meta, convert etc) and account management tasks (search files, check usage, list users etc.).

FTP upload

To upload by FTP, enter the settings below into your FTP program. Popular programs include FileZilla (Windows/Mac/Linux), Transmit (Mac) or Free FTP (Windows).

FTP is available to Owner and Admin roles - see list of roles.

• FTP server: ftp.sirv.com
• Your username: Your email address
• Your password: same as your Sirv password
• Encryption: plain FTP (not SFTP/TLS)

If using FileZilla, open Site Manager and setup your account like the screenshot below, then click "Connect":

Multiple FTP accounts

If you manage multiple Sirv accounts, you can FTP into another account by using your Sirv email and password and appending the account name to your email address. For example:

• yourname@example.com+otheraccount

This is how the configuration looks in FileZilla:

FTP append

Sirv supports the APPE command (append), which can be useful when uploading huge files or if your network connection is unstable. If a connection breaks during an upload, APPE makes the file continue uploading where it left off. Most FTP programs support APPE.

To use APPE in Filezilla, go to Edit > Settings... and set the "File exists action" for Uploads to Resume file. Screenshot:

If you have a slow or unstable internet connection, images may not fully upload to Sirv. If Sirv receives only part of an image, the missing part will show as dark grey. You'll see an alert in your Sirv account that the image is corrupt, recommending that you upload the image again.

If an unstable internet connection leads to numerous partly uploaded images, try zipping your images or using an S3 upload program.

FTP throttling

There's an hourly limit (see below) on the number of files that can be uploaded. If you're hitting your limit, consider throttling FileZilla to upload files slower. Assuming your images are 500 KB each and your FTP limit is 2,000 files per hour, an upload limit of 250 KiB/s will transfer 1,800 files per hour. Adjust the rate as you need.

FTP rate limit

You can use FTP to upload large, though limited numbers of files per hour. If you need to upload more files per hour, you can use S3, which has higher limits.

Rate limits for Enterprise and Business accounts:

• FTP uploads per hour: 2,000
• FTP retrieves per hour: 3,000
• FTP deletes per hour: 3,000
• Total FTP operations per hour: 10,000

Rate limits for Free accounts:

• FTP uploads per hour: 300
• FTP retrieves per hour: 1,000
• FTP deletes per hour: 300
• Total FTP operations per hour: 1,000

Total FTP limit

Your FTP client sends commands to Sirv's FTP server. Sirv sends a response for every command it receives and these responses count towards your total FTP limit. There are more than 60 FTP commands, the most common of which are:

• LIST - Return information about a file or directory
• RETR - Retrieve a file (download)
• STOR - Store a file (upload)
• SIZE - Return the size of a file
• MDTM - Return the last-modified time of a file

If you're hitting your global limit without completing many uploads or downloads, it means that your FTP client is making too many other commands. Reduce the number of additional commands or use S3 instead.

Disable FTP

Many people find FTP convenient, but it is also unsecure. Your username and password are transferred unencrypted, making it vulnerable to sniffing, spoofing or brute force attack. Therefore, we recommend disabling FTP if you do not intend to use it. Instead, upload and download files via my.sirv.com or S3 (see below).

To disable FTP for all users of your account, go to your Settings page. Users with the role of Owner or Admin can enable/disable FTP.

S3 upload

Sirv supports the S3 interface, permitting you to upload, download and manage your files with a program that supports S3.

Uploads over S3 are secure (HTTPS), using port 443. S3 uploads benefit from integrity checks, allowing interrupted uploads to be resumed (by automatically returning the file MD5 in the ETag header). Multipart uploads are supported, allowing large files to be broken into smaller chunks and then building them together. These benefits make S3 an attractive alternative to FTP.

To configure S3 uploading, use your S3 credentials on the Settings page of your Sirv account.

A popular program that supports S3 file transfers is Cyberduck (Windows/Mac/Linux). Follow our step-by-step instructions to configure Cyberduck. Once configured, set Cyberduck to repeat failed uploads, by ticking the "Repeat failed networking tasks" box:

Upload file size limits

Files such as videos and zips should be smaller than a certain file size or the upload will fail. The maximum file size differs depending on the upload method:

• FTP: no limit
• S3: 512 MB per file
• my.sirv.com: 300 MB per file
• REST API: 80 MB per file

Zip files

Zip can be a useful way of uploading images/folders. They will automatically unpack, maintaining their folder structure:

• If the zip file has no folder, the contents will be extracted into a folder named after the zip filename.
• If the zip file has one folder, the contents will be extracted into that folder.
• If the zip file has more than one top level folder, the contents will be extracted into a new folder named after the zip filename.

If a folder with the same name already exists, the contents will be added to the existing folder. If a file with the same name already exists, it will be overwritten.

Zip size limit

Zip files larger than a certain size will not unpack. If your zip exceeds the limit, break it into smaller zips.

Maximum file size to unpack a zip:

• 1 GB: Enterprise & Business 20+ accounts
• 512 MB: Business 5-12 accounts
• 128 MB: Trial accounts
• 64 MB: Free accounts

Limits for zip contents:

• Maximum number of files inside: 5,000
• Maximum depth of folder levels: 3

If you have a slow or unstable internet connection, zip uploads may fail. You can configure S3 and FTP to be resumable, so that partially uploads files continue uploading where they left off.

Archives must be in ZIP format (.zip). Sirv cannot extract files in proprietary formats such as RAR (.rar).

Disable zip unpacking

If you don't want zips to be automatically unpacked and deleted, change your account settings to disable unpacking and/or deletion:

Downloading images

To download files from your Sirv account, either right-click the file/folder or select multiple files/folders and click "Download". Sirv will package all the files into a zip file and commence the download.

Downloads are limited to 4,000 files and 512MB per zip file (whichever is greater). The zip will not be generated if either limit is exceeded.

You can also download files by FTP or S3. Each has a limit on the number of downloads per hour.

Download via URL

You can also download files via HTTP. Just append ?dl to the file URL. Example:

https://demo.sirv.com/example.jpg?dl=1

You can download the file in a particular format or size, by appending dynamic imaging parameters. This URL will download the file in JPEG format at 1200px width:

https://demo.sirv.com/example.jpg?dl=1&format=jpg&w=1200