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Adding Bulk Files to an Item

This is the last step in the bulk uploading process. At this point you're either adding the files to a new item, or adding files to an existing item. If you haven't created the item yet, please refer to the Adding a New Item tutorial.

Warning

Do not save the item after adding the media until the tutorial explicitly tells you to do so.

Media Loction

Individual Files

"Sideload"

Multiple files

In the Item "Media" tab, you want to select "Sideload directory" from the right hand side.

sideload-directory.png

Directory

There are multiple people with permissions to upload files to the server. It's important that you're aware of the directory structure.

directory.png

In the screenshot above, you see how Omeka-S interprets the files that were uploaded with FileZilla.

Each item starts with the username of the person who uploaded the files, followed by any subdirectories that were created.

In this case, the user "matthew" uploaded the file Big Brother.zip and was unzipped into the Big Brother directory. If you selected just the matthew item in the dropdown, it would add all files under mathew's uploads, but not the contents of the Big Brother directory or any other subdirectories. If matthew unzipped the Big Brother.zip file, but did not delete it, selecting matthew from the dropdown would add the Big Brother.zip file to the item, but not the contents of the Big Brother directory. We do not want this.

If you select matthew/Big Brother, it will add all files in the Big Brother directory made by unzipping. However, if there are subdirectories in the Big Brother directory, their contents will not be added. In the screenshot, you can see that the Big Brother directory has a subdirectory called ICE Changes their tweet and Naval Academy Removes Books. If you want to add the contents of those directories recursively, you need to select the "Ingest directories recursively" checkbox.

recursive.png

So, with "Ingest directories recursively" checked, selecting matthew/Big Brother will add all files in the Big Brother directory as well as all files in the ICE Changes their tweet and Naval Academy Removes Books directories.

Danger

If you select matthew and check "Ingest directories recursively", it will add all files in the matthew directory, including all files in all subdirectories. This is potentially dangerous depending on how many files you have uploaded.

At this time, select the directory you want in the dropdown. You will now set the basic information to assist other organizers in sorting the files later.

Indicators

If you're using the bulk upload process to mass dump files and intend for them to be sorted later, we want to indicate to others that each media file is not sorted and private the item so it cannot be viewed by the public.

  1. The item should only be in the "Default" item set.

  2. The item should be set as "Private" so it cannot be viewed by the public. This can be accomplished by clicking the eye icon in the top right corner of the item page.

    private.png

  3. You should set the title of the item to "YYYY-MM-DD - un - whatever you want" so that it is clear to others that the item is not sorted.

    unprocessed.png

Important

The title must be in the correct format to include the spaces. So, 2025-07-10 - un - Big Brother is correct, but 2025-07-10-un-Big Brother is not.

Finishing up

At this time you can save the item. You can now go back to the Adding a New Item tutorial to finish adding the item.