category: features-image-upload menu-title: Base64 upload adapter
The {@link module:upload/adapters/base64uploadadapter~Base64UploadAdapter Base64 image upload adapter} plugin converts images inserted into the rich-text editor into Base64-encoded strings in the {@link builds/guides/integration/saving-data editor output}.
This kind of image upload does not require any server-side processing — images are stored with the rest of the text and displayed by the web browser without additional requests. On the downside, this approach can bloat your database with very long data strings which, in theory, could have a negative impact on the performance.
Check out the comprehensive {@link features/image-upload Image upload overview} to learn about other ways to upload images into CKEditor 5.
Use the editor below to see the adapter in action. Open the web browser console and click the button below to see the base64–encoded image in the editor output data.
{@snippet features/base64-upload}
First, install the @ckeditor/ckeditor5-upload package:
npm install --save @ckeditor/ckeditor5-upload
Add the {@link module:upload/adapters/base64uploadadapter~Base64UploadAdapter Base64UploadAdapter} to your plugin list:
import Base64UploadAdapter from '@ckeditor/ckeditor5-upload/src/adapters/base64uploadadapter';
ClassicEditor
.create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
plugins: [ Base64UploadAdapter, ... ],
toolbar: [ ... ]
} )
.then( ... )
.catch( ... );
Once enabled in the plugin list, the Base64 image upload adapter works out–of–the–box without any additional configuration.
Read more about {@link builds/guides/integration/installing-plugins installing plugins}.
The allowed file types that can be uploaded should actually be configured in two places:
Use the {@link module:image/imageupload~ImageUploadConfig#types image.upload.types} configuration option to define the allowed image MIME types that can be uploaded to CKEditor 5.
By default, users are allowed to upload jpeg, png, gif, bmp, webp and tiff files, but you can customize this behavior to accept, for example, SVG files.
It is up to you to implement any filtering mechanisms on your server in order to restrict the types of images that are allowed to be uploaded.
Check out the comprehensive {@link features/image-upload Image upload overview} to learn more about different ways of uploading images in CKEditor 5.
See the {@link features/image Image feature} guide to find out more about handling images in CKEditor 5 WYSIWYG editor.
The source code of the feature is available on GitHub in https://github.com/ckeditor/ckeditor5-upload.