Retrieving media

To retrieve files you can use the getMedia-method:

$mediaItems = $yourModel->getMedia();

To retrieve files from all collections you can use the getMedia-method with *:

$mediaItems = $yourModel->getMedia("*");

The method returns a collection of Media-objects.

You can retrieve the URL and path to the file associated with the Media-object using getUrl, getTemporaryUrl (for S3 only) and getPath:

$publicUrl = $mediaItems[0]->getUrl();
$publicFullUrl = $mediaItems[0]->getFullUrl(); // URL including domain
$fullPathOnDisk = $mediaItems[0]->getPath();
$temporaryS3Url = $mediaItems[0]->getTemporaryUrl(Carbon::now()->addMinutes(5));

If you want to retrieve versioned media URLs, for example when needing cache busting, you can enable versioning by setting the version_urls config value to true in your media-library.php config file. The getUrl() and getFullUrl() functions will return the URL with a version string based on the updated_at column of the media model.

Since retrieving the first media and the URL for the first media for an object is such a common scenario, the getFirstMedia and getFirstMediaUrl convenience-methods are also provided:

$media = $yourModel->getFirstMedia();
$url = $yourModel->getFirstMediaUrl();

An instance of Media also has a name, by default its filename:

echo $mediaItems[0]->name; // Display the name

$mediaItems[0]->name = 'new name';
$mediaItems[0]->save(); // The new name gets saved.

The name of a Media instance can be changed when it's added to the media library:

$yourModel
   ->addMedia($pathToFile)
   ->usingName('new name')
   ->toMediaCollection();

The name of the uploaded file can be changed via the media-object:

$mediaItems[0]->file_name = 'newFileName.jpg';
$mediaItems[0]->save(); // Saving will also rename the file on the filesystem.

The name of the uploaded file can also be changed when it gets added to the media-library:

$yourModel
   ->addMedia($pathToFile)
   ->usingFileName('otherFileName.txt')
   ->toMediaCollection();

You can sanitize the filename using a callable:

$yourModel
   ->addMedia($pathToFile)
   ->sanitizingFileName(function($fileName) {
      return strtolower(str_replace(['#', '/', '\\', ' '], '-', $fileName));
   })
   ->toMediaCollection();

You can also retrieve the size of the file via size and human_readable_size :

$mediaItems[0]->size; // Returns the size in bytes
$mediaItems[0]->human_readable_size; // Returns the size in a human readable format (eg. 1,5 MB)

An instance of Media also contains the mime type of the file.

$mediaItems[0]->mime_type; // Returns the mime type

You can remove something from the library by simply calling delete on an instance of Media:

$mediaItems[0]->delete();

When a Media instance gets deleted all related files will be removed from the filesystem.

Deleting a model with associated media will also delete all associated files. If you use soft deletes, the associated files won't be deleted.

$yourModel->delete(); // all associated files will be deleted as well

You may delete a model without removing associated media by calling the deletePreservingMedia method instead of delete.

$yourModel->deletePreservingMedia(); // all associated files will be preserved 

If you want to remove all associated media in a specific collection you can use the clearMediaCollection method. It also accepts the collection name as an optional parameter:

$yourModel->clearMediaCollection(); // all media in the "default" collection will be deleted

$yourModel->clearMediaCollection('images'); // all media in the images collection will be deleted

Also, there is a clearMediaCollectionExcept method which can be useful if you want to remove only few or some selected media in a collection. It accepts the collection name as the first argument and the media instance or collection of media instances which should not be removed as the second argument:

$yourModel->clearMediaCollectionExcept('images', $yourModel->getFirstMedia()); // This will remove all associated media in the 'images' collection except the first media

##Are you a visual learner?

Here's are a couple of videos on adding and retrieving media.

Want to see more videos like these? Check out our free video course on how to use Laravel Media Library.