# Step By Step Guide To Upload Files With Laravel Framework
As a full-stack web developer, I've always needed to implement a file upload feature in my projects. Today, I'll show you how it's easy to upload files to the server with Laravel Framework.
Step 1
Let's run the following artisan command to create a controller called **FileUploadController**. This controller will be used along the tutorial to show the file upload page to the users and store the uploaded files on the server.
```javascript
php artisan make:controller FileUploadController
```
Step 2
Since we created our controller in step 1, in this step we will create a route in **web.php** to show the page to the users.
```javascript
Route::get('/file-upload-test', [FileUploadController::class, 'index'])->name('file-upload.index');
```
Step 3
In step 2 we created a route with the URL of **file-upload-test** which calls the **index** method in **FileUploadController** to show a page to the users.
But we didn't create this method yet. So, let's create this **index** method in the **FileUploadController** which will render a blade file that we named as **file-upload.blade.php** to show the file upload page.
```javascript
Document
```
Once this blade file is rendered we see the following page. (If you visit **file-upload-test** URL now you will get an error, **move to the step 5**)
![image.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1660079461981/BBDWadKMH.png align="left")
Basically, we have a simple form with a label, an input field with the file type, and a button used to submit the form.
Let's explore the following form element a little bit to understand what's going on.
```javascript
```
* We need an endpoint on the form element to send the submitted data to some URL in our app. So, we put **action={{ route('file-upload.store') }}** which means that whenever the form is submitted the data will be sent to this route (we didn't create it yet).
* Since we are aiming to upload a file we put **enctype="multipart/form-data"** otherwise the file is not submitted to the back-end.
* The **method=POST** attribute is specified in the form because we are going to send a **POST** request to the endpoint.
* In order to pass CSRF validation on Laravel we call \*\* @csrf\*\* blade directive in the form element which creates a hidden CSRF token field.
Step 5
In step 4 we created an HTML form in the **file-upload.blade.php** file and now we are going to create a route named **file-upload.store** in the **web.php** file.
```javascript
Route::get('/file-upload-test', [FileUploadController::class, 'index'])->name('file-upload.index');
Route::post('/file-upload', [FileUploadController::class, 'store'])->name('file-upload.store');
```
Step 6
In step 5 we created a route **file-upload.store** in **web.php** and we know that the route will call **store** method in the **FileUploadController**. So, let's create this method in the controller to upload the file.
```javascript
public function store(Request $request)
{
if ($request->hasFile('uploaded_file')) {
$uploadedFile = $request->file('uploaded_file'); // the file uploaded
$extension = $request->file('uploaded_file')->getClientOriginalExtension(); //jpg, jpeg, png
$fileName = Str::uuid() . '.' . $extension; // de3f31db-85f8-4b9b-a3b9-a4b45b551322.jpg
Storage::disk('public')->putFileAs('uploaded_files', $uploadedFile, $fileName);
}
return redirect()->back();
}
```
Let's explore how this method work.
* First of all we check if the request has a file in the **uploaded\_file** parameter.
* If there is a file then we store it in the **uploadedFile** variable.
* Then we get the uploaded file extension using **$request->file('uploaded\_file')->getClientOriginalExtension();**
* We need a name to store the file in our file system. So, the **Str::uuid()** helper is used to create a universal unique identifier for the file name and appended the file extension to the end of it.
* There are three different disk options on Laravel as default **local, public, and s3**. Since we want to show the uploaded file in our application later we use **public** disk.
* In the last part, we upload the file into the **uploaded\_files** folder in the public disk (if **uploaded\_files** folder does not exist, it will be automatically created) using **Storage::disk** helper in Laravel.
This is how actually we upload a file in the Laravel Framework.
If you like to upload a file but also want to save the path into the database, then basically you just need to save the **fileName** variable as the path and later on, you can use this path to show the file.
Example;
```javascript
 }})
```
Note: Since we use the **public** disk of the framework we should run the following artisan command to make sure the **uploaded\_files** folder in the **storage** folder of the application is linked to the **public** as a symbolic link. Otherwise, the uploaded files will not be publicly available.
```javascript
php artisan storage:link
```