In plain English
Storage is where the big files live, images, videos, PDFs, anything a customer uploads. It's not the database, that's for small facts in rows. It's not the website's own files either. For a handful of photos, you can just keep them in the site's own folder in the repository. For lots of files, or anything users upload themselves, you'd want a proper storage service instead, something like Supabase Storage or Cloudflare R2.
A worked example
The café's photo gallery, all those food shots, lives in storage, either right in the repo if there's only a few, or in Supabase Storage if there's genuinely hundreds. The front-end asks storage for the image and shows it. Now say the café has a jobs page and someone uploads a CV, that file goes straight into storage via the back-end. The database might just hold the filename and the applicant's name; storage keeps the actual PDF safe. Front-end displays it, back-end sorts it, storage holds onto it.
Getting set up
A few images can just sit in the website's own folder in the GitHub repository, no extra account needed. Lots of files, or user uploads, call for the storage that comes with whatever platform you're using (Supabase Storage, Cloudflare R2), created from the same dashboard as the database or hosting. Often it's already there, you just start dropping files in.
The usual mix-up
People think the database stores everything, files included. It doesn't. Facts go in the database, files go in storage. Keep them separate and life's easier.
Where you’ll use it
- How to get AI tobuild me an appBuild something
- How to get AI tobuild me a website with LovableBuild something
Also comes up in: sort and organise my files.