PowerApps Media Storage

[Darius22]

Hi,

I am currently looking into creating an app. We have been asked to possibly store images and be able to replace them, remove them or add more. Upon investigation we have come across the method of storing them as part of the app itself.

I have been unable to find any information about how many images can be stored inside the media storage of a PowerApp.

So my main questions are;

1) How many images can be stored in a single PowerApp Media Storage?

2) Does this increase the size of the app or are these stored on a online cloud and only accessed when looked at?

3) What is the loading time expected to be for images stored within the PowerApp?

Thanks,

Darius

[mr-dang]

Good question. I am interested in the answer too.

[Darius22]

Another question to go along with these;

4) Is it possible to use the camera of a device to take an image and then save it to the media files directly instead of using a collection? Current testing with a Collection has it only working locally and unable to be shared between different users.

[carlosag · Accepted solution]

Could you clarify more about the scenario you are trying to achieve?

In general images embedded in the App are traditionally meant to be more "static" images that are part of the design of the app, more than data of the app. So as a rule of thumb I would suggest that if you are needing hundreds of images that are not app visuals (like buttons, or icons) it might be best to treat them as app data and have them stored external to the app.

To answer some of your questions:

1) There is no specific number that we are publicly supporting at this point, but it should be large enough that likely would support all app visuals. As you get to more and more files, you will experience some degradation on other areas. The effect will vary depending on the number of files and size of the files.

2) Yes, the images embedded in the application will be stored in the application and that means that download times, save times, and other related things will be affected if you store hundreds of files.

3) It depends on the size and number of files, as well as the device storage speed and network speeds, so hard to come up with a specific number. It would be great if you can describe more about the type of images and usage on the app for them so we can help with more specific numbers.

4) No, you cannot add new images at "runtime" into the app, you can as you find keep them in the local device but that will likely not be good enough.

In general with Storage options like Azure Blob Storage that are so affordable (starting at like 2 cents per GB per month), or even free storage in OneDrive and other similar clouds, I would really recommend looking at some of those for your application image data needs.