# How to process files uploaded by users?

**URL:** <https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-process-files-uploaded-by-users/74397>\
**Category:** ℹ️ Support\
**Tags:** feature, upload\
**Created:** [March 19, 2020, 10:08am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-process-files-uploaded-by-users/74397 "2020-03-19T10:08:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![VSZM](https://help.nextcloud.com/letter_avatar/vszm/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@VSZM](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/VSZM)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2020, 10:08am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-process-files-uploaded-by-users/74397/1 "2020-03-19T10:08:09Z")

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Hi!

**Is it possible to process files uploaded by the users?** My use case is that users upload unencoded videos that are huge, and on the server side I would like to use ffmpeg or a sophisticated python script to encode the file and replace the uploaded file with the encoded version. What technique is available for this scenario? Since encoding can take minutes I would prefer a solution that is asynchronous and runs in the background after the upload is done.

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**Author:** ![j-ed](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/j-ed/32/7281_2.png) [@j-ed](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/j-ed)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2020, 10:16am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-process-files-uploaded-by-users/74397/2 "2020-03-19T10:16:50Z")

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I would recommend to check-out the app store, where you should find a workflow app which can be used to execute external script etc.

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**Author:** ![VSZM](https://help.nextcloud.com/letter_avatar/vszm/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@VSZM](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/VSZM)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2020, 10:23am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-process-files-uploaded-by-users/74397/3 "2020-03-19T10:23:59Z")

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I have checked that but the documentation is quite scarce and the example processes the file and the output is saved outside of nextcloud. I am not sure how it would be used to modify the data stored in nextcloud.

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**Author:** ![j-ed](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/j-ed/32/7281_2.png) [@j-ed](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/j-ed)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2020, 12:12pm UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-process-files-uploaded-by-users/74397/4 "2020-03-19T12:12:47Z")

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A more detailed description of the available command line parameters can be found [here](https://github.com/nextcloud/workflow_script). You need to parse the the file name “%n”, which also contains the relative path, and then you can run commands within a script etc.

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**Author:** ![wwe](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/wwe/32/72963_2.png) [@wwe](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/wwe)\
**Post date:** [December 13, 2024, 1:15pm UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-process-files-uploaded-by-users/74397/5 "2024-12-13T13:15:35Z")

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**Author:** ![wwe](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/wwe/32/72963_2.png) [@wwe](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/wwe)\
**Post date:** [December 13, 2024, 1:15pm UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-process-files-uploaded-by-users/74397/6 "2024-12-13T13:15:36Z")

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