Would anyone be able to post a ss of the tumblr post? My parents have a lot of websites blocked on my home wifi for no reason and tumblr is one of them...
Edit: THE END TIMES ARE HERE!!! FIND A FILE HOST NOW!!!
Discord has officially put this change in place. As of 2/23/24, files hosted on discord will not be accessible outside of discord. I personally reccomend postimage for images and filegarden for audio, more details below.
IMPORTANT: i've been seeing a lot of comments about how this is a bad decision on discord's part. While discord DOES make a lot of bad decisions, THIS ISN'T ONE OF THEM - while using discord as a file host for external websites was convenient, it was also abuse of their server space. Discord is a chat client with infrastructure made to bear the weight of messaging. It does not have the server capacity to act as a media host. Media hosting for other sites (the only thing this change impacts) is very resource-heavy, and not all services are equipped to bear that load. This change was put in place to prevent discord's finite server space from being misused, and this is something that websites have been doing in various ways since the 2000s for the same reason. PLEASE USE DESIGNATED SERVICES FOR YOUR FILES, "WELL IT WORKS FOR NOW" WILL ONLY HURT YOU LATER
- love, your friendly neighborhood netizen
anyway back to your regularly scheduled post, reorganized because this has happened now. sorry if it's a mess
more info in this tumblr post, i decided to share it here because i use discord for the audio files i use in my codes :( essentially, links to things hosted on discord will expire shortly after the link is made, so you won't be able to use links to discord messages (including images or text files) permanently outside of discord.
Now is a great time to find actual image/file hosting places because discord uhhhh was never for that anyway. I'll be working on ways to use audio files hosted on other storage sites so when the change goes out i can help people with my codes. There's a list of hosting sites in the tumblr post, I personally use imgur for most of my stuff! < don't do this. see update below
i might also repost this/a link to the thread here in service reviews bc i know a lot of people use discord to host proof screenshots 😬
Avistella has provided a nice selection of alternatives in this comment, and theglitzyhive has a bulletin here with his own list of alternatives and some offline content preservation tips you may find useful. please check out these resources!
moif made this tool that provides a discord-like interface for accessing files on your google drive like you've been doing on discord! Thank you so much for making this!
Thanks to ferdie for mentioning that the images themselves aren't lost! You can paste the image url back into discord, and it'll still work, so you can save them from there and reupload them somewhere else! THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED TO WORK BY OTHER USERS - HANG ONTO YOUR LINKS!
some clarifications for people reading this thread, who aren't that well versed in how image hosting works!
Will this effect images in your servers? No. The ONLY thing this will effect is links from other websites outside of discord to media in discord messages. Nothing in your servers or messages is getting deleted. We don't have enough information to know how this will effect things between servers, though, so I can't speak on that.
What is an image host? For people on the internet to see an image from your computer, it has to be hosted somewhere on the internet with a permanent web address, and whenever someone loads a web page with that image on it, the page on their screen has to be able to read that web address to retrieve the image from your host and display it. Most sites can host the images used on their own pages without issue, for example, toyhouse hosting the images in your characters' galleries and user avatars. For things beyond the scope of what the site allows their servers to store, an image hosting service outside the site is needed - for example, the images used in peoples' user layouts and character codes.
What is hotlinking? Hotlinking is when you take a link to an image hosted on someone else's server and use that link to serve the image on your website. For example, if I uploaded a picture to my own website on my own server, and you copied the same link to it on my server for your own website. Hotlinking from sites that don't have the server space for it is bad! Because you have to get the image from its host every single time someone loads the page it's on, hotlinking to a server that was meant for one website will put multiple websites' worth of strain on the server. This was a cardinal sin in the 2000s, but they don't teach this stuff anymore.
"ALTERNATIVES" THAT ARE NOT ALTERNATIVES: Imgur and neocities!!! I keep seeing people suggest imgur as neocities for hotlinking purposes. Imgur's TOS forbids doing this (and they make it super hard to do anyway) and they'll ban you from the site if they find out. Neocities blocks hotlinking entirely, which is what discord has chosen to do. THEY WILL HOST YOUR IMAGES, BUT YOU CAN'T HOTLINK TO THEM ON YOUR SITES.
GutterGlitter THANKS SO MUCH! I'm gona check out the alternatives lmao, I have like... 3 or 4 servers dedicated just to hosting pics on discord, might spend a couple hours switching over to smth
Thatweirdbandkid321 i definitely reccommend the one i linked in the op, you can jsut copy paste or click and drag images into it to upload them and make/ search filenames in galleries. i'm currently moving my whole imgur pixel hoard over to it and it's going crazy fast
GutterGlitter OOHH OKK!! imma use that, I only got 2 hours to spare so I wanna get this done quick before my interest in it stops lmao
For those who might be looking into alternatives, here are some sites that I've personally tried, plus some notes about what I like/ don't like about them (I hope I don't sound pretentious ;;). These are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head, but if I remember any I'll add them in.
GOOD:
- File Garden (Allows images, audio, and video)
- Requires an account to use
- Gives you direct link to copy (meaning you don't have to right-click to manually copy-paste)
- Can set image privacy
- Can create folders
- Files (in the same folder) cannot have the same file name
- Can upload multiple files at a time
- Can copy-paste immediately (ex. screenshots) if using Ctrl + V rather than uploading a file from your computer/ device, but will prompt you to name the file first
- imgbox (Allows images and video)
- Does not require account to upload, but you must be 18 or older to use it.
- Can sort images into galleries.
- Can upload multiple files at a time
- Have to select content type (i.e. SFW or NSFW) before uploading (in other words, it's not a very straightforward "upload and go" kind of deal)
- Can copy-paste immediately (ex. screenshots) if using Ctrl + V rather than uploading a file from your computer/ device, but you must specify if the content type is SFW/ NSFW first
- ImgBB (Allows images only)
- Does not require account to use
- Can upload multiple files at a time
- Can create an album (with an account).
- Can copy-paste immediately (ex. screenshots) if using Ctrl + V rather than uploading a file from your computer/ device, but you will still have to click an "Upload" button
- Postimages (Allows images only)
- Does not require account to use
- Gives you direct link to copy (meaning you don't have to right-click to manually copy-paste)
- Can upload multiple files at a time
- Can create a gallery (with an account).
- Can copy-paste immediately (ex. screenshots) if using Ctrl + V rather than uploading a file from your computer/ device
OKAY:
- MediaFire (Allows images, audio, and video)
- Have to go through a few extra steps to get direct link unless you have an upgraded account.
- Has 1 GB storage limit if you don't have an account. Limit goes up to 10 GB if you do have an account, and you can buy more storage space with a plan.
- Google Drive (Allows images, audio, and video)
- Have to go through a few extra steps to get direct link.
- Has 15 GB storage limit unless you buy a plan.
- Dropbox (Allows images, audio, and video)
- Have to go through a few extra steps to get direct link.
- Has 2.25 GB GB storage limit unless you buy a plan.
NOT RECOMMENDED:
- EZGif
- Files are temporary (i.e. will result in broken images)
- Imgur
- Using as an image host is against their TOS. Will get you banned from Imgur if they find out.
- catbox.moe
- Not available in/ with certain countries/ providers.
- Using for commercial services without prior approval (ex. hosting images for commissions) is not allowed.
Avistella WHAT... IMGUR WAS ADVERTISED AS AN IMAGE HOSTING SITE WHEN I JOINED.... NO WONDER THEY'VE MADE IT SO HARD TO USE IT THE WAY I NEEDED TO THANK GOD I MOVED MY MASSIVE PIXEL HOARD
Yeah, Imgur is more of an "image sharing" site now rather than "image hosting" specifically.
"Also, don't use Imgur to host image libraries you link to from elsewhere, content for your website, advertising, avatars, or anything else that turns us into your content delivery network."
Me, when I read that: WELP.
Well goddammit this sucks :/
I guess now the search for an alternative must begin... By the way, thank you Avistella for the informative list, that's very helpful! If you don't mind me asking, do you know if any of those sites allow you to copy+paste an image (such as a screenshot) rather than having to first save the image to the computer's harddrive to upload it? I know it's probably unlikely, but that was one of the really convenient things I liked about using discord.
WHAT I had no idea imgur wasn't a image hosting site anymore... wtf I was using it since like the 2010s
Pastafang postimages does! I'm currently using it now and you can add images to it pretty much any way imaginable
Pastafang : imgbox, ImgBB, and Postimages allow you to copy-paste directly rather than uploading a file from your device, but that's only really if you're using your keyboard (Ctrl + V) and not your mouse (i.e. right-click then paste). File Garden has that option too, but you'll be prompted to name your file, and each file has to be a different name, so it's not as convenient.
In terms of convenience, Postimages might be your best bet, simply because you can just paste-and-go. ImgBB has you first paste the image then have to click the "Upload" button. imgbox requires you to first specify if the image is SFW or NSFW before uploading.
I will mention that Dropbox is absolute ass for anything larger than PNGs unless you either subscribe to premium or go through the stupid referral song and dance.