Install ESP32 Filesystem Uploader in Arduino IDE

The ESP32 contains a Serial Peripheral Interface Flash File System (SPIFFS). SPIFFS is a lightweight filesystem created for microcontrollers with a flash chip, which is connected by SPI bus, like the ESP32 flash memory. In this article we’re going to show how to easily upload files to the ESP32 filesystem using a plugin for Arduino IDE.
Using Arduino IDE 2.0? Follow this tutorial instead:
Arduino IDE 2: Install ESP32 LittleFS Uploader (Upload Files to the Filesystem)
Note:
if you have an ESP8266 board, read:
Install ESP8266 NodeMCU LittleFS Filesystem Uploader in Arduino IDE
If you’re using VS Code with the PlatformIO extension, read the following tutorial instead:
ESP32 with VS Code and PlatformIO: Upload Files to Filesystem (SPIFFS)
Table of Contents
Introducing SPIFFS
Installing the Arduino ESP32 Filesystem Uploader
Windows Instructions
MacOS X Instructions
Uploading Files using the Filesystem Uploader
Testing the Uploader
Introducing SPIFFS
SPIFFS lets you access the flash memory like you would do in a normal filesystem in your computer, but simpler and more limited. You can read, write, close, and delete files. At the time of writing this post, SPIFFS doesn’t support directories, so everything is saved on a flat structure.
Using SPIFFS with the
ESP32 board
is especially useful to:
Create configuration files with settings;
Save data permanently;
Create files to save small amounts of data instead of using a microSD card;
Save HTML and CSS files to build a web server
;
Save images, figures, and icons
;
And much more.
With SPIFFS, you can write the HTML and CSS in separate files and save them on the ESP32 filesystem. Check the following tutorial to learn how to build a web server with files stored on the ESP32 file system:
ESP32 Web Server using SPIFFS (SPI Flash File System)
Installing the Arduino ESP32 Filesystem Uploader
You can create, save and write files to the ESP32 filesystem by writing the code yourself on the Arduino IDE. This is not very useful, because you’d have to type the content of your files in the Arduino sketch.
Fortunately, there is a plugin for the Arduino IDE that allows you to upload files directly to the ESP32 filesystem from a folder on your computer. This makes it really easy and simple to work with files. Let’s install it.
Note:
at the time of writing this post, the ESP32 Filesystem Uploader plugin is not supported on Arduino 2.0.
First, make sure you have the ESP32 add-on for the Arduino IDE. If you don’t, follow the next tutorial:
Windows, Mac, and Linux
instructions – Installing the ESP32 Board in Arduino IDE
Windows Instructions
Follow the next steps to install the filesystem uploader if you’re using Windows:
1)
Go to the
releases page and click the ESP32FS-1.0.zip
file to download.
2)
Find your Sketchbook location. In your Arduino IDE, go to
File
>
Preferences
and check your Sketchbook location. In my case, it’s in the following path:
C:\Users\sarin\Documents\Arduino
3)
Go to the sketchbook location, and create a
tools
folder.
4)
Unzip the downloaded
.zip
folder. Open it and copy the
ESP32FS
folder to the
tools
folder you created in the previous step. You should have a similar folder structure:
<Sketchbook-location>/
tools/ESP32FS/tool/esp32fs.jar
5)
Finally, restart your Arduino IDE.
To check if the plugin was successfully installed, open your Arduino IDE. Select your ESP32 board, go to
Tools
and check that you have the option “
ESP32 Sketch Data Upload
“.
MacOS X
Follow the next instructions if you’re using MacOS X.
1)
Go to the
releases page and click the ESP32FS-1.0.zip
file to download.
2)
Unpack the files.
3)
Create a folder called
tools
in
/Documents/Arduino/
4)
Copy the unpacked
ESP32FS
folder to the
tools
directory. You should have a similar folder structure.
~Documents/Arduino/
tools/ESP32FS/tool/esp32fs.jar
5)
Finally, restart your Arduino IDE.
To check if the plugin was successfully installed, open your Arduino IDE. Select your ESP32 board, go to
Tools
and check that you have the option “
ESP32 Sketch Data Upload
“.
Uploading Files using the Filesystem Uploader
To upload files to the ESP32 filesystem follow the next instructions.
1)
Create an Arduino sketch and save it. For demonstration purposes, you can save an empty sketch.
2)
Then, open the sketch folder. You can go to
Sketch
>
Show Sketch Folder
. The folder where your sketch is saved should open.
3)
Inside that folder, create a new folder called
data
4)
Inside the
data
folder is where you should put the files you want to save into the ESP32 filesystem. As an example, create a
.txt
file with some text called
test_example
5)
Then, to upload the files, in the Arduino IDE, you just need to go to
Tools
>
ESP32 Sketch Data Upload
The uploader will overwrite anything you had already saved in the filesystem.
Note
: in some ESP32 development boards you need to press the on-board
BOOT
button when you see the “Connecting …….____……” message.
The files were successfully uploaded to the ESP32 filesystem when you see the message “
SPIFFS Image Uploaded
“.
Testing the Uploader
Now, let’s just check if the file was actually saved into the ESP32 filesystem. Simply upload the following code to your ESP32 board.

#include \"SPIFFS.h\"

void setup() {
Serial.begin(115200);

if(!SPIFFS.begin(true)){
Serial.println(\"An Error has occurred while mounting SPIFFS\");
return;
}

File file = SPIFFS.open(\"/test_example.txt\");
if(!file){
Serial.println(\"Failed to open file for reading\");
return;
}

Serial.println(\"File Content:\");
while(file.available()){
Serial.write(file.read());
}
file.close();
}

void loop() {

}
After uploading, open the Serial Monitor at a baud rate of 115200. Press the ESP32 “
ENABLE
/
RST
” button. It should print the content of your
.txt
file on the Serial Monitor.
You’ve successfully uploaded files to the ESP32 filesystem using the plugin.
Wrapping Up
Using the filesystem uploader plugin is one of the easiest ways to upload files to the ESP32 filesystem. Check the following project to see how to build a web server using HTML and CSS files stored on the filesystem:
ESP32 Web Server using SPIFFS (SPI Flash File System)
Another way to save data permanently is using the ESP32 Preferences library. It is especially useful to save data as key:value pairs in the flash memory. Check the following tutorial:
ESP32 Save Data Permanently using Preferences Library
For more projects with ESP32, check the following resources:
Learn ESP32 with Arduino IDE
Build Web Servers with ESP32 and ESP8266
Firebase Web App with ESP32 and ESP8266
Free ESP32 Projects and Tutorials…