Displaying Google Drive images directly in a message

[richtea]

** Note: Look up how to do the basic Google Drive steps below on Google or Bing, if you're new to it. You'll find far better explanations than I can manage here. **

Basic Google Drive steps:
- a Google Drive account with an image/photo already uploaded, that you want to share
- Make the Google Drive image shareable with anyone
- Get the image's sharable link (aka URL)


Example:
Here's my test shareable link (you can click on it if you want to see the image - oh go on):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aE8S0SPTusdtpcQuTQFYjfl4JYtFPISH/view?usp=sharing


The sneaky stuff:
1. Extract your image's unique ID from inside that link / URL:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aE8S0SPTusdtpcQuTQFYjfl4JYtFPISH/view?usp=sharing

The unique image ID (for my particular image) is 1aE8S0SPTusdtpcQuTQFYjfl4JYtFPISH

2. The magic bit: Add your image ID into a special 'direct' URL. The basic 'direct' URL is:
https://drive.google.com/uc?id=

Adding your unique image ID gives:
https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1aE8S0SPTusdtpcQuTQFYjfl4JYtFPISH

3. Finally wrap it with [img][/img], like so:
[img]https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1aE8S0SPTusdtpcQuTQFYjfl4JYtFPISH[/img]

Pressing the 'Insert Image' button in the message composition screen will add [img][/img] for you if you prefer, but you'll still have to accurately paste the final URL in-between the [img][/img].

4. Paste the URL into your post, and hit Preview - if you see the image, you've got it right!

5. Post, post, baby




[Jan 2024] NOTE! If you're not seeing an image of a fat bloke above, then follow the fix in this post:
https://eurokclub.bike/index.php?topic=5315

Or consider using imgbb instead.

[Matt]

Great!

My one thought: perhaps add a warning/reminder note on re-sizing images prior to this. Not that I remember how to do that outside of imgur

[PeterZ]

test

[black-k1]

Great!

My one thought: perhaps add a warning/reminder note on re-sizing images prior to this. Not that I remember how to do that outside of imgur

A very good point but (thanks to Rich) we now know the forum can do its own resizing for display purposes. Simply replace the [img] at the start of the image display line with [img width=800]. Simples!

[GlynH]

And just for completion if anybody comes across the same problem as me where your own photos are still not displaying after following the excellent instructions above please double check the format your photos are saved as in Google Drive.

As an iPhone user my camera format was set to save in High Efficiency (.HEIC) and it appears this SMF Forum software cannot display images in this format.

If you set your iPhone camera to save in Most Compatible (.JPG) everything works as expected after following the excellent instructions above.

I know I've repeated myself on this same subject today in other threads but just wanted to follow up here in case anybody searches in future and stumbles across this thread.

Hope that helps.

-=Glyn=-

[GlynH]

Interestingly Rich your post explaining how to use Google Drive to post photos including an example photo is not displaying these days!

I'm gonna have another go to see if I can display a photo from Google Drive so please just ignore this post.

Here we go. Or not as I suspect the case to be.

First of all a straight copy of the photo link inserted using the Insert Image icon above which will probably fail miserably;



Now using the Insert Hyperlink icon above which I expect will allow the link to be clicked on to display the photo;

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bMzypmyinvRw-wJSXUvbRrYiNwcmiVDK/view?usp=sharing

Now using Rich's instruction and the way I used to have photos displayed on here before they all just stopped working so guessing this won't work either although it will probably display the box outline with a small question mark in the middle like the two examples above;



Not sure what else to try...why does Google have to break things that used to work properly?

And finally I've just spotted the modified modified link in another post from Rich;



-=Glyn=-

[GlynH]

Well that last way of doing things seems to work!

I wonder how long that will last before Google see fit to break it again?

All good for now though which is a result. When I get bored I might week go back and later all of my links to reflect these changes and see if I can make my photos display again.

-=Glyn=-

[raesewell]

imgbb just works and has done for many years.

[Matt]

This is all reminding me of that year I insisted on getting to my bedroom every evening via a rope ladder and next door's overhanging tree.