Install imgdrop

You need a small server, a folder for the images and, if you want a nice address, a reverse proxy. Allow ten minutes.

Requirements

A Linux machine (x86-64 or ARM64). It idles at around 15 MB of memory.
A directory with enough space for your images, writable by the user that runs imgdrop.
A web server or reverse proxy if you want HTTPS and a host name such as img.example.net.

1. Download and run the binary

Download the build for your architecture, make it executable and start it:

sudo useradd --system --home /var/lib/imgdrop imgdrop
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/imgdrop
sudo chown imgdrop: /var/lib/imgdrop
chmod +x ./imgdrop
sudo -u imgdrop ./imgdrop --data /var/lib/imgdrop --listen 127.0.0.1:8080

Open 127.0.0.1:8080 in a browser on the same machine and drop a test image. If you get a link back, it works.

Keep it running

A minimal systemd unit is enough:

[Unit]
Description=imgdrop
After=network.target

[Service]
User=imgdrop
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/imgdrop --data /var/lib/imgdrop --listen 127.0.0.1:8080
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

2. Or use Docker

docker run -d --name imgdrop -p 127.0.0.1:8080:8080 -v imgdrop-data:/data -e IMGDROP_BASE_URL=https://img.example.net imgdrop:latest

The image keeps everything in /data, so a named volume or a bind mount is all you need to persist.

3. Put a reverse proxy in front

imgdrop speaks plain HTTP and expects something else to handle HTTPS. A sample block in nginx syntax; any reverse proxy works the same way:

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name img.example.net;

    # your certificate lines here

    client_max_body_size 12m;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

Keep the proxy body limit a little above imgdrop's own maximum upload size, otherwise people see a generic proxy error instead of imgdrop's message.

Settings

Every setting is a flag or an environment variable. Flags win if both are set.

Flag	Environment variable	Default	Meaning
`--data`	`IMGDROP_DATA`	`./data`	Directory where images and metadata are stored.
`--listen`	`IMGDROP_LISTEN`	`127.0.0.1:8080`	Address and port to listen on.
`--max-size`	`IMGDROP_MAX_SIZE`	`10MB`	Largest accepted upload.
`--expiry`	`IMGDROP_EXPIRY`	`never`	Default lifetime of an image, e.g. `24h`, `7d`, `never`.
`--password`	`IMGDROP_PASSWORD`	empty	If set, uploading requires this password. Viewing stays open.
`--base-url`	`IMGDROP_BASE_URL`	from request	Public address used when building short links.
`--keep-exif`	`IMGDROP_KEEP_EXIF`	`false`	Keep EXIF data instead of stripping it.

Updating

Stop the service, replace the binary with the new one, start it again. The data directory format is stable inside a major version; the release notes say when that changes.

sudo systemctl stop imgdrop
sudo install -m 755 ./imgdrop /usr/local/bin/imgdrop
sudo systemctl start imgdrop

With Docker, pull the new image and recreate the container with the same volume.

Backing up

Everything lives in the data directory, so a backup is a copy of it:

rsync -a /var/lib/imgdrop/ /backups/imgdrop/

You can do this while imgdrop is running. To restore, put the files back and start the program.