Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Adding images to SharePoint from a URL - mini life hack

Often you find yourself adding an image to SharePoint which you find on the internet. The upload dialog in SharePoint does not offer to link to a URL outside the domain you are on, so the workaround is to save the image locally, then upload.

At least if you are using Windows there is a quicker approach which usually works, and it also works in most other applications which allow you to upload a file.

First, get the URL to a random image, typically by right clicking and copying the URL.

image

Next navigate to the app where you want to upload the image, in this case a modern page head banner.

image

In the add image dialog click Upload, and instead of picking a local file, paste the URL into the file name field. What now happens is that your computer will download the image and then upload it in one go. Pretty nifty, and saves you cleaning up temp files.

image