How to Bulk Upload Photos to Adalo

using the power of google drive, sheets and Apps Script to upload CSVs with photos

Now: it’s either manual or by URLs, and google drive share links don’t work…

When trying to upload data sheets to Adalo, images had to be left out because they can’t be uploaded in CSV format. So we had to either upload them manually one by one to Adalo, or upload the photos somewhere online and add the separate file URLs to the sheet and use URLs as image source.

TL;DR: Get the photo IDs in bulk using Apps Script, use view links instead of share links and and concatenate in google sheets

I found a way around this using google view URLs instead of regular share links and used Google apps scripts to find image IDs.

➡️ The solution

Let’s assume that you, like my client, have an app for ordering items online. And you have a spreadsheet with products names, SKUs, descriptions and photos and you want to upload them to your adalo database.

1. Create a new google spreadsheet to use for your database. It should look something like this. Create columns for photo name, ID and URL. These three columns are what we will be filling now. Sort items by name.

2. Now, on your computer, name product photos to so that each photo contains product name or ID (you will see why later on) and again sort them by name.

3. upload all product photos to a Google drive folder and make it public.

4. Now we are going to get the list of all image names and ID’s in your folder to build the URLs that you can use in Adalo. Create a new sheet in the spreadsheet and go to tools > Apps script.

5. Copy & paste this script contributed by Alan Wells on Stackoverflow (you can find it below the screenshot), and replace the spreadsheet ID, sheet name and folder IDs with your own. Run the script and go back to your sheet. You should have two columns with file names and IDs.

copyable script below

function logFilesToSheet() {
var arrayForOneRow,file,id,name,outerArray,sh,ss;
id = "";//Enter your spreadsheet file id here
name = "";//Enter the sheet tab name here
ss = SpreadsheetApp.openById("12L2zxJhkU9hCMIhLY7I8c1-CoIEA1rLXw8Ci2aZvywQ");
sh = ss.getSheetByName("Image names and ID");
outerArray = [];
var fldr=DriveApp.getFolderById("1cmbD93dPJ_oTGR7xfmcqkjAcdwk6OWXH");
var files=fldr.getFiles();

while (files.hasNext()) {
file = files.next();
//Logger.log(file.getName());
//Logger.log(file.getId());
arrayForOneRow = [];//Reset on each loop - Each row needs a new array
arrayForOneRow.push(file.getName());
arrayForOneRow.push(file.getId());
outerArray.push(arrayForOneRow);
}
sh.getRange(sh.getLastRow() + 1,1,outerArray.length,2).setValues(outerArray);
}

The sheet should look like this now:

names in first column, IDs in second

6. now copy the IDs to the image id column in the first sheet, and the names to the photo name column. Compare image name with product id or name to make sure that each product got the right image.

7. In the photo URL column (yay we’re finally there!); add this formula to concatenate the view link (https://drive.google.com/uc?id=)with the image id for each image:

=CONCATENATE(“https://drive.google.com/uc?id=","CELL WITH ID")

8. Drag to end of the list, and we are done! hover over any link and you should see a preview of the photo (another way to check if the image is correct).

9. Now you can download this dataset as CSV and upload your full product list with product images to Adalo at once. (file > download > CSV).

In Adalo

• database collections > “your set name” > Records > Import CSV

• Choose your CSV file and choose only the relevant columns.
• Done! now in your list, click the product image and add the image URL as source.

Now we are officially done!!

let’s test it out:

I used one image for testing, but I promise they’re 50 different files :D

I hope this helps you a little, it sure saved me hours of mindless work: find image, find id, create id, copy & paste in sheet😱😱

God bless Stackoverflow, God bless knowledge sharing and God bless laziness if it helps us find better solutions!

Till next time, lots of love! and #keepdesigning ❤