php 40 lines · 8 steps

Handling avatar uploads in Laravel

A Laravel controller that validates, resizes, stores, and swaps a user's avatar image in one request.

Explained by highlit

Laravel Intermediate file-upload image-processing validation storage controllers

1<?php
2 
3namespace App\Http\Controllers;
4 
5use Illuminate\Http\Request;
6use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
7use Intervention\Image\Facades\Image;
8 
9class AvatarController extends Controller
10{
11    public function update(Request $request)
12    {
13        $validated = $request->validate([
14            'avatar' => ['required', 'image', 'mimes:jpeg,png,webp', 'max:4096'],
15        ]);
16 
17        $user = $request->user();
18 
19        $resized = Image::make($validated['avatar'])
20            ->fit(256, 256)
21            ->encode('webp', 85);
22 
23        $path = sprintf('avatars/%s/%s.webp', $user->id, bin2hex(random_bytes(8)));
24 
25        Storage::disk('public')->put($path, (string) $resized, [
26            'visibility' => 'public',
27            'CacheControl' => 'max-age=31536000',
28        ]);
29 
30        if ($user->avatar_path) {
31            Storage::disk('public')->delete($user->avatar_path);
32        }
33 
34        $user->update(['avatar_path' => $path]);
35 
36        return response()->json([
37            'avatar_url' => Storage::disk('public')->url($path),
38        ]);
39    }
40}

01 / 01

STEP 01

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Three takeaways

1Validate uploads tightly by type, mime, and size before touching the filesystem.
2Normalizing images to a fixed size and format keeps storage predictable and cacheable.
3Write the new file first and delete the old one only after, so a failure never leaves a user without an avatar.

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