Metadrop: Managing untracked files in Drupal with File Inspector

The useful part

Content management systems include different types of files as part of the managed content. However, for several reasons, those files are not always tracked by the application and can accumulate and lead to certain issues. This article explores this problem and proposes File Inspector as a solution.

How it works

• The root cause is two stores that must agree: the bytes in storage versus the database that is supposed to keep track of them.
• These accumulated unreferenced files are untracked files, a kind of dark data: information an organisation keeps but no longer uses.
• This is a common problem in the sector, and it does not depend on the technology in use.
• It happens in three ways: records get deleted but the files stay, files get uploaded but never registered, and jobs fail halfway.

Details worth keeping

The files that Drupal does not track Any long-lived Drupal site, whether it stores files in a local folder or a remote bucket like Amazon S3, holds hundreds of files, and there is no easy way to see which ones Drupal still tracks and which it has lost sight of. Every content system faces it sooner or later.