Is there a way to upload an asset with a URL?

Question

I'm at the data entry stage of development and I've got a slew of entries with images to create. I'm stepping through the process manually and I'd like to use the URL of the image in the Upload files dialog instead of doing the download/upload rigamarole.

The images are on a server I don't have access to outside of their website. Ideally I would use the image URL in the Upload files dialog box instead of a local path and the image would be fetched and saved as an asset associated with the entry.

If this workflow seems parochial alternative solutions are welcome!

Answer 1

Firstly, you could manually copy/paste all your images into your Asset Source folders, then hit "Update Asset Indexes" from the settings. What this does is scan the directories for files, and creates them in the database if they don't exist. Once thats done, in your entries, you simply need to enter the filename in the search field (once you click "Add an Asset" on your asset field), and you're done.

For a more automated solution, you could look at Feed Me to update your entries, along with automatically uploading your assets from a provided URL. Your feed could be as simple as:

[{
  title: "Entry Title 1"
  images: [
    "http://my.website/my-image-1.jpg",
    "http://my.website/my-image-2.jpg"
  ]
}, {
  title: "Entry Title 2"
  images: [
    "http://my.website/my-image-3.jpg",
    "http://my.website/my-image-4.jpg"
  ]
}]

Answer 2

I found a comment from 2015 saying that it wasn't possible at that time so I'm going to tentatively accept a 'no' answer on this. Technically however, I don't understand if it's not possible, or if it just hasn't been built yet. I think information pertaining to that would be relevant.