Cloud Platform keeps your application’s files separate from your codebase and databases. These files consist of the content that you upload (for example, PDF files).
The Files section of the Environments > Overview page is a user interface that allows you to copy your application’s files between your application’s environments. After you first create or import an application, the Prod environment is in Pre-launch mode. You can copy files freely between your Dev, Stage, and Prod environments while your application is in the Pre-launch mode.
After you switch to Production mode, you can’t copy files (or databases) to your Production environment. The typical workflow is from right to left, where you can copy files from your Production environment to either Staging or Development. To learn more, see Using Production mode.
If you change the mode to Pre-launch mode, Cloud Platform allows you to copy files between environments without destroying your files. For example, if you drag your Staging environment to Production, Cloud Platform will overwrite the files that are present in both your Staging and Production environments, and then preserve the files that are present only in Production. Cloud Platform writes any new files, overwrites any pre-existing files, and ignores any files that are already in place. This prevents an accidental deletion of files.
Note
Files in your application’s file storage are not executable by Cloud Platform PHP processes.
Copying files between environments
You can copy files from one environment to another environment in the Cloud Platform user interface, using either the Application > Environments page or the Application > [Environment] > Overview page for a particular environment.
To copy files from one environment to another environment using the Application > Environments page:
Drag a Files node from the source environment to the target environment.
In the confirmation dialog, click Copy.
To copy files from one environment to another environment using the Application > [Environment] > Overview page for a particular environment:
In Files, click Copy.
In the Copy files dialog, select the target environment that you want to copy files to, and click Continue.
In the confirmation dialog, click Copy.
Cloud Platform copies the files between the environments and updates the infrastructure with your changes. You can track the status of the file copying process in the Activity panel.
For information about how to copy some, but not all files from one environment to another, see Copying files to a different environment.
Cloud Next limitations
If you copy files from one Cloud Next environment to another, read the following limitations before you start:
The maximum total size of files that can be copied is 1 TB.
The maximum total number of files that can be copied is 300000.
The maximum number of files in a single directory is 100000. Exceeding this value impacts the file copy performance.
Backing up your files
For information about how to back up your files, see File backups. Cloud Platform does not support the Backup and Migrate module.