File Storage : The Local Driver and The Public Disk

Posted under » Laravel on 02 June 2026

When using the local driver, all file operations are relative to the root directory defined in your filesystems configuration file. By default, this value is set to the storage/app/private directory. Therefore, the following method would write to storage/app/private/example.txt:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;

Storage::disk('local')->put('example.txt', 'Contents');

The public disk included in your application's filesystems configuration file is intended for files that are going to be publicly accessible. By default, the public disk uses the local driver and stores its files in storage/app/public.

If your public disk uses the local driver and you want to make these files accessible from the web, you should create a symbolic link from source directory storage/app/public to target directory public/storage: To create the symbolic link, you may use the storage:link Artisan command:

php artisan storage:link

Once a file has been stored and the symbolic link has been created, you can create a URL to the files using the asset helper:

echo asset('storage/file.txt');

You may configure additional symbolic links in your filesystems configuration file. Each of the configured links will be created when you run the storage:link command:

'links' => [
    public_path('storage') => storage_path('app/public'),
    public_path('images') => storage_path('app/images'),
],

The storage:unlink command may be used to destroy your configured symbolic links:

php artisan storage:unlink