Cloudinary CLI

Features

The Cloudinary CLI (Command Line Interface) enables you to interact with Cloudinary through the command line. For example, you can perform Admin and Upload API operations by typing commands into a terminal without having to spend time setting up a formal coding environment. Additional helper commands are provided to help you to try out transformations, optimizations, and other common actions with minimal effort. You can also combine CLI commands in a batch file to automate laborious tasks.

It is fully documented at https://cloudinary.com/documentation/cloudinary_cli.

Requirements

Your own Cloudinary account. If you don't already have one, sign up at https://cloudinary.com/users/register/free.

Python 3.6 or later. You can install Python from https://www.python.org/. Note that the Python Package Installer (pip) is installed with it.

Setup and Installation

1. To install this package, run: pip3 install cloudinary-cli
2. To make all your cld commands point to your Cloudinary account, set up your CLOUDINARY_URL environment variable. For example:
   • On Mac or Linux:
     export CLOUDINARY_URL=cloudinary://123456789012345:abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzA@cloud_name
   • On Windows (cmd.exe):
     set CLOUDINARY_URL=cloudinary://123456789012345:abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzA@cloud_name
   • On Windows (PowerShell):
     $Env:CLOUDINARY_URL="cloudinary://123456789012345:abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzA@cloud_name"

Note: you can copy and paste your account environment variable from the Account Details section of the Dashboard page in the Cloudinary console.

3. Check your configuration by running cld config. A response of the following form is returned:

   cloud_name:     <CLOUD_NAME>
   api_key:        <API_KEY>
   api_secret:     ***************<LAST_4_DIGITS>
   private_cdn:    <True|False>
   

   If you get an error message when running cld config, you may need to add your Python installation to your $PATH. To do so, you can run PATH="$PATH:/Library/Python/Versions/3.8/bin" in your terminal, and add export PATH="$PATH:/Library/Python/Versions/3.8/bin" to your /.bash_profile or ~/.zshrc.

Quickstart

For details, see the Cloudinary CLI documentation.

Usage: cld [cli options] [command] [command options] [method] [method parameters]

Important commands

cld --help         # Lists available commands.
cld search --help  # Shows usage for the Search API.
cld admin          # Lists Admin API methods.
cld uploader       # Lists Upload API methods.

Upload API

Enables you to run any methods that can be called through the upload API.

You can find documentation for each of the Upload API methods at https://cloudinary.com/documentation/image_upload_api_reference.

The basic syntax using the Upload API is as follows:

cld [cli options] uploader [command options] [method] [method parameters]

For details, see the Cloudinary CLI documentation.

Example: change the asset with public_id:"flowers" from type:upload to type:private and rename it using the rename method, which takes two parameters - from_public_id and to_public_id.

Use any of the following commands:

cld uploader rename flowers secret_flowers to_type=private
cld uploader rename flowers secret_flowers -o to_type private
cld rename flowers secret_flowers to_type=private

Note: you can omit 'uploader' from the command when calling an Upload API method.

Admin API

Enables you to run any methods that can be called through the admin API.

You can find documentation for each of the Admin API methods at https://cloudinary.com/documentation/admin_api.

The basic syntax using the Admin API is as follows:

cld [cli options] admin [command options] [method] [method parameters]

For details, see the Cloudinary CLI documentation.

Example: create a transformation and get information about that transformation:

cld admin create_transformation my_new_transformation w_500,h_500,c_crop,e_vectorize
cld admin transformation my_new_transformation

Note: you can omit 'admin' from the command when calling an Admin API method.

Search API

Runs the admin API search method, allowing you to use a Lucene query string as the expression.

You can find documentation for the Search API at https://cloudinary.com/documentation/search_api.

The basic syntax using the Search API is as follows:

cld [cli options] search [command options] [expression]

For details, see the Cloudinary CLI documentation.

Other commands

url

Generates a Cloudinary URL, which you can optionally open in your browser.

cld [cli options] url [command options] public_id [transformation]

For details, see the Cloudinary CLI documentation.

Example: generate a URL that displays the image in your media library that has the public ID of 'sample', with a width of 500 pixels and transformed using the cartoonify effect, then open this URL in a browser.

cld url -rt image -t upload -o sample w_500,e_cartoonify

The URL that is returned is:

http://res.cloudinary.com/<YOUR CLOUD NAME>/image/upload/w_500,e_cartoonify/sample

make

Returns template code for implementing the specified Cloudinary widget.

cld [cli options] make [command options] [widget]

For details, see the Cloudinary CLI documentation.

Example: output the HTML required to embed the Upload Widget on your website.

cld make upload_widget

upload_dir

Uploads a folder of assets, maintaining the folder structure.

cld [cli options] upload_dir [command options] [local_folder]

For details, see the Cloudinary CLI documentation.

Example: upload the local folder, my_images, and all its contents and sub-folders to your Cloudinary folder my_images_on_cloudinary.

cld upload_dir -f my_images_on_cloudinary my_images

sync

Synchronizes between a local folder and a Cloudinary folder, maintaining the folder structure.

cld [cli options] sync [command options] local_folder cloudinary_folder

For details, see the Cloudinary CLI documentation.

Example: push up changes from the local folder, my_images, to your Cloudinary folder, my_images_on_cloudinary/my_images.

cld sync --push my_images my_images_on_cloudinary/my_images

migrate

Migrates a list of external media files to Cloudinary. The URLs of the files to migrate are listed in a separate file and must all have the same prefix.

cld [cli options] migrate [command options] upload_mapping file

For details, see the Cloudinary CLI documentation.

Additional configurations

A configuration is a reference to a specified Cloudinary account or cloud name via its environment variable. You set the default configuration during setup and installation. Using different configurations allows you to access different Cloudinary cloud names, such as sub-accounts of your main Cloudinary account, or any additional Cloudinary accounts you may have.

The config command displays the current configuration and lets you manage additional configurations.

You can specify the environment variable of additional Cloudinary accounts either explicitly (-c option) or as a saved configuration (-C option).

For example, using the -c option:

cld -c cloudinary://123456789012345:abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzA@cloud_name admin usage

Whereas using the saved configuration "accountx":

cld -C accountx admin usage

Caution: Creating a saved configuration may put your API secret at risk as it is stored in a local plain text file.

You can create, delete and list saved configurations using the config command.

cld config [options]

For details, see the Cloudinary CLI documentation.