Stop your Airtable attachment links from expiring on Nov 8th.
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Beginning November 8th, 2022, Airtable will make a change to the attachment links. Previously, the attachment links in your base could be accessed via URL. Attachment URLs could be discovered using a formula or an API request. Sharing those links enabled other people or systems to access attachment data in Airtable.
The Airtable attachments links will start expiring in about 2 hours starting November 8th. This means that every time you use the API to request an attachment object, the URL will be valid for only the next two hours (more less). More information about this change can be found here:
https://support.airtable.com/docs/changes-to-airtable-attachments
There is also a good supplementary thread here:
https://community.airtable.com/t/airtable-dropping-support-for-public-attachments/47539/45
In general Airtable should not be used for hosting files if you plan using them as a CDN for a website or a mass distribution source. In a case like this it will be much better to host them on a proper CDN like for example Cloudinary.
However, if you are using Airtable to share files with customers or coworkers who do not have access to Airtable, it may be useful to learn how to prevent links from expiring. This tutorial demonstrates a quick workaround that will assist you in locating a solution to keep attachment links from expiring. It will also demonstrate how to share attachments more effectively:
1. Create attachment sharing link that does not expire
2. Use the same link for multiple files from the attachment field
3. Use the same link for multiple attachment fields
4. Set custom sharing expiry date and turn sharing on/off
5. Bonus: create custom download page
You can find code samples for the download page here
https://codesandbox.io/s/file-sharing-page-vuvhz9
