docspell/modules/microsite/docs/doc/uploading.md

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This page describes, how files can get into docspell. Technically, there is just one way: via http multipart/form-data requests.

Authenticated Upload

From within the web application there is the "Upload Files" page. There you can select multiple files to upload. You can also specify whether these files should become one item or if every file is a separate item.

When you click "Submit" the files are uploaded and stored in the database. Then the job executor(s) are notified which immediately start processing them.

Go to the top-right menu and click "Processing Queue" to see the current state.

This obviously requires an authenticated user. While this is handy for ad-hoc uploads, it is very inconvenient for automating it by custom scripts. For this the next variant exists.

Anonymous Upload

It is also possible to upload files without authentication. This should make tools that interact with docspell much easier to write.

Creating Anonymous Uploads

Go to "Collective Settings" and then to the "Source" tab. A Source identifies an endpoint where files can be uploaded anonymously. Creating a new source creates a long unique id which is part on an url that can be used to upload files. You can choose any time to deactivate or delete the source at which point uploading is not possible anymore. The idea is to give this URL away safely. You can delete it any time and no passwords or secrets are visible, even your username is not visible.

Example screenshot:

This example shows a source with name "test". It defines two urls:

• /app/upload/<id>
• /api/v1/open/upload/item/<id>

The first points to a web page where everyone could upload files into your account. You could give this url to people for sending files directly into your docspell.

The second url is the API url, which accepts the requests to upload files (which is used by the first url).

For example, this url can be used to upload files with curl:

$ curl -XPOST -F file=@test.pdf http://localhost:7880/api/v1/open/upload/item/CqpFTb7UmGe-9nMVPZSmnwc-AHH6nWFh52t-M1JFQ9y7cdH
{"success":true,"message":"Files submitted."}

You could add more -F file=@/path/to/your/file.pdf to upload multiple files (note, the @ is required by curl, so it knows that the following is a file).

When files are uploaded to an source endpoint, the items resulting from this uploads are marked with the name of the source. So you know which source an item originated.

If files are uploaded using the web applications Upload files page, the source is implicitly set to webapp. If you also want to let docspell count the files uploaded through the web interface, just create a source (can be inactive) with that name (webapp).

The Request

This gives more details about the request for uploads. It is a http multipart/form-data request, with two possible fields:

• meta
• file

The file field can appear multiple times and is required at least once. It is the part containing the file to upload.

The meta part is completely optional and can define additional meta data, that docspell uses to create items from the given files. It allows to transfer structured information together with the unstructured binary files.

The meta content must be application/json containing this structure:

{ multiple: Bool
, direction: Maybe String
}

The multiple property is by default true. It means that each file in the upload request corresponds to a single item. An upload with 5 files will result in 5 items created. If it is false, then docspell will create just one item, that will then contain all files.

Furthermore, the direction of the document (one of incoming or outgoing) can be given. It is optional, it can be left out or null.

This kind of request is very common and most programming languages have support for this. For example, here is another curl command uploading two files with meta data:

curl -XPOST -F meta='{"multiple":false, "direction": "outgoing"}' \
            -F file=@letter-en-source.pdf \
            -F file=@letter-de-source.pdf \
            http://localhost:7880/api/v1/open/upload/item/CqpFTb7UmGe-9nMVPZSmnwc-AHH6nWFh52t-M1JFQ9y7cdH