Menu

Expand
Rate this page:

Conversations Media Resource

The Media resource in Twilio's Media Content Service allows you to upload/download files for use in other Twilio products. You can attach these media files to Conversation Messages as part of the Media Messaging feature.

Note: The Media REST resource is accessed via a separate sub-domain from Chat and other Twilio products. The base URL for Media via the Media Content Service (MCS) is:

https://mcs.us1.twilio.com/v1

Authentication

HTTP requests to the REST API are protected with HTTP Basic authentication, just like other Twilio REST APIs. To learn more about how Twilio handles authentication, please refer to our security documentation. In short, you use your Twilio account SID as the username and your Auth Token as the password for HTTP Basic authentication.

curl -G https://mcs.us1.twilio.com/v1/Services \
    -u '[YOUR ACCOUNT SID]:[YOUR AUTH TOKEN]'

You can find your Account SID and Auth Token in the admin console. Alternately, you can also use API keys and secrets to authenticate REST API requests. You can also manage API key pairs in the console.

Note: The Media endpoint is not represented in the Twilio Helper Libraries or Twilio CLI at this time.

Properties

Each Media resource instance has these properties:

name description
sid A 34-character string that uniquely identifies this resource.
account_sid The unique id of the Account responsible for this message.
service_sid The unique id of the Chat Service this message belongs to.
date_created The date that this resource was created.
date_updated The date that this resource was last updated, null if the message has not been edited.
channel_sid The unique id of the Conversation (same as the underlying Chat Channel) containing the Message that this media instance was added to.
message_sid The unique id of the Conversation Message this media instance was added to.
size The size of the file this Media instance represents in BYTES
content_type The MIME type of the file this Media instance represents. Please refer to the MIME Types for a list of valid MIME types.
file_name The filename of the underlying media file as specified when uploaded
author The identity of the User that uploaded the Media instance. This is automatically set to sender when using the REST API.
url An absolute URL for this media instance
links Links to access the underlying media file (content) and a temporary URL to use to access this (content_direct_temporary)

Create/Upload a new Media resource

POST /Services/{Chat Service SID}/Media

Note: The Chat Service SID must be the Chat Service Instance that this Media instance will be used for. You can find the Chat Service SID as a property of the Conversation to which you want to add a new media message.

To create a new media instance, you should upload the media file itself as content on the POST request. (See Curl Example below.)

Ultimately, this will be converted into a POST request, containing the following headers and the file itself as the request body.

Headers

name description
Content-Type The MIME type of the file this Media instance represents. Please refer to the MIME Types for a list of valid MIME types. This should be set explicitly by the API caller or automatically detected by the client.
Content-Size The size of the media (the file) being uploaded in bytes

Body

The body or content of the POST must be the file itself in binary format.

Curl Example

curl -u "<account_sid>:<account_secret>" --data-binary @<filename.png> -H "Content-Type: <content-type of upload>" https://mcs.us1.twilio.com/v1/Services/<chat_service_sid>/Media

Retrieve a Media resource

You can retrieve an uploaded Media resource by issuing a GET request with the SID of the media instance:

GET /Services/{Chat Service SID}/Media/{Media SID}

Curl Example for retrieving a media resource

curl -u “<account_sid>:<account_secret>” -G https://mcs.us1.twilio.com/v1/Services/<chat_service_sid>/Media/<Media SID>
Rate this page:

Need some help?

We all do sometimes; code is hard. Get help now from our support team, or lean on the wisdom of the crowd by visiting Twilio's Stack Overflow Collective or browsing the Twilio tag on Stack Overflow.

Loading Code Sample...
        
        
        

        Thank you for your feedback!

        Please select the reason(s) for your feedback. The additional information you provide helps us improve our documentation:

        Sending your feedback...
        🎉 Thank you for your feedback!
        Something went wrong. Please try again.

        Thanks for your feedback!

        thanks-feedback-gif