Connect WordPress Media Library to cloud storage

[kimjiwoon]

I'd like to explore connecting the WordPress Media Library to cloud storage. The goal is to synchronize Samsung Gallery → OneDrive → WordPress Media Library, making posting easier and reducing the storage burden for backups.

I’m curious if using Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive as external storage can help eliminate large backup files while potentially improving site performance.

I was thinking about using a URL path option instead of storing images in the media library when adding images to my posts. This way, the images would not be hosted directly on my WordPress site but instead served from a cloud drive.

Alternatively, the original images could be stored in the cloud, and only thumbnail images would be generated locally. External image hotlinks would be redirected through the website.

References:

• https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/47839
• ​https://wplift.com/connect-wordpress-media-library-to-onedrive/
• ​https://wordpress.org/plugins/embed-sharepoint-onedrive-documents/#does%20it%20support%20sharepoint%20on-premise%3F
• ​https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5417943/one-drive-integrated-with-wordpress?forum=msoffice-all&referrer=answers

[callumbw95]

Hey @kimjiwoon,

I have just taken a look into this, and I am not sure if something like this will make its way into core WordPress, however I know there are a good handful of plugins available to offload your media to external services like a CDN (Amazon S3, Digital Ocean Spaces, Google Cloud Storage, etc). For example I have used the ​WP Offload Media plugin in the past for agency work as well as personal projects, but there are other alternatives too, such as;

• ​Media Cloud Sync
• ​Infinite Uploads

However these plugins do serve as proof that something like this could make its way into core at some point in the future, but I am not sure if we do get core functionality for this, that it will ever be connected directly to personal cloud storage such as Google Drive, and One Drive. This is due to the fact these aren't designed to be used as a CDN, and using something like Google Cloud Storage would be the better route due to the available functionalities of this cloud service over something like Google Drive.

As of such I see merit in this request and think that in the modern webspace it is pretty common place for sites to be set up using a CDN, and having this as a built in option makes a lot of sense. Especially when you consider various other more recent CMS platforms have started to include this functionality out of the box. But I would like to hear back from the extended community and see what there thoughts are around this request. 😃

[peterwilsoncc]

@kimjiwoon Unfortunately this isn't suitable for WordPress Core.

While synchronizing the media library with cloud storage could be useful for some users, the variety of providers of such services make it impractical to include within WordPress. WordPress would need to add API integrations for Dropbox, Google Drive, One Drive, iCloud and many many others.

If these APIs change, users of old versions of WordPress would find their sites broken as such changes wouldn't be backported to old versions of the software.

As @callumbw95 suggests, support for such a feature is best left to plugins as they will be able to do a better job of maintaining and updating the API integrations for the service they link to.