It’s easy for a developer to integrate user files stored on a desktop or mobile device into an app. It’s not hard to program your Android or iOS app, for example, to access a smartphone’s camera roll. The problem is that today’s users store files everywhere — Dropbox, Google Drive, Facebook, OneDrive, Flickr, or Evernote, just to name a few — and it’s tedious for developers to have to deal with multiple APIs to integrate these cloud storage services into their apps.
Filepicker solves the problem by enabling your app to access multiple cloud storage lockers using just one API. You don’t have to upload, store, or process user files; Filepicker does all of it for you. The interface is simple from a developer’s standpoint, requiring just a few lines of code. It’s a simpler development experience for you and a better UX for your customers.
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How Filepicker Works
Filepicker is a SaaS deployment, not something that you host on your own servers. Here’s how the application works:
1. You Integrate Filepicker Into Your Site or App
You have a few different choices, including mobile SDKs and Filepicker’s Javascript library, in addition to many other library integration types, depending on your programming needs. The code itself is incredibly simple. Here’s a sample:
filepicker.pick(
function(Blog){
console.log(Blog.url);
}
);
2. Users See the Filepicker API When They Want Their Files
When they want to access one of their stored cloud files, users will tap a button within your application. They’ll see a popup that lets them choose from an integrated service and then asks for their login credentials. You reduce cloud security concerns because the login credentials don’t stay with Filepicker or with your app. Instead, the cloud storage provider manages the remote login, whether through OAuth or another protocol.
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3. Filepicker Retrieves the File
Once the user grants access to the cloud storage provider, Filepicker retrieves the desired file. You don’t have to integrate 10 or 20 APIs into your app, and you don’t have to worry about managing updates. You also don’t have to worry about maintaining connections with cloud storage providers. Filepicker transforms all of this into a turnkey service.
4. Filepicker Processes the File
One of the biggest benefits of Filepicker is that it limits your need for file processing infrastructure. Filepicker does the necessary conversions on its own hardware, even transforming images and transcoding videos for you. The processed file is assigned a URL that your application can access.
5. The User Sees the Content
You can incorporate different functions into the content delivery phase, such as resizing, facial recognition, cropping, and other features. For instance, if you app wants to user Filepicker to retrieve profile pictures for your users, Filepicker’s facial recognition pictures center images on the face and size them accordingly.
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How Much Does It Cost?
Filepicker has multiple plans priced according to your app’s data usage. Mid-sized companies can get up to 75,000 monthly conversions of up to 25,000 files sized 1GB or less, along with 30GB of bandwidth, for $99 per month. The basic plan integrates with Dropbox, Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, and Google Drive.
The second-tier plan, which costs $299 per month, throws in accelerated processing of video files and rich conversions of up to 100,000 files. It also integrates with an unlimited number of cloud storage providers. The most extensive plan, designed for high-volume and critical processing, costs $499 per month. You get all of the accelerated processing features, an upper limit of 20GB for files, and processing of up to 200,000 files plus customer OAuth and a custom cloud SDK.
If you’re just a hobbyist or if you’re running a startup, Filepicker has lower-cost options for you. You can use the free plan to process up to 500 files of 20MB or fewer, or you can use the startup plan for $49 per month that processes up to 2,000 of 100MB or fewer files and integrates Amazon S3 storage. All plans come with a 10-day free trial. If you’re running a large enterprise, you can contact Filepicker directly for pricing.
Easy Cloud Storage Integration and File Processing
Filepicker doesn’t do anything that you couldn’t do yourself, but do you really want to spend time working with multiple APIs and dealing with file processing? If you don’t, Filepicker automates everything, creating a better experience for you and your users.