Desktop uploader

The Mapillary Desktop Uploader is a desktop application that enables uploading Mapillary imagery in bulk. You can upload to individual as well as organization accounts (including both public and private organization imagery).

The Desktop Uploader is available for macOS and Windows. Download the installer file and run it on your computer like when installing any other application.

Download the Desktop Uploader →

The Desktop Uploader is meant for uploading geotagged imagery; you can't add location information to images in the application. In the future, we plan to add more features like options for processing and editing imagery pre-upload as well as support for videos and more image formats (including 360° imagery that needs stitching).

In this article, you can read about:

1. The uploading workflow
2. Upload history and retrying uploads
3. Aborting the upload and reprocessing images
4. Reporting issues (including where to find error logs)

 

Uploading

When you’ve installed the desktop application, open it and sign in with your Mapillary login credentials. You can’t use the application without signing in, so if you don’t have an account yet, create one on the Mapillary web.

Once you’ve signed in, you’re ready to start uploading.

1. Choose your upload target
2. Add images (they will be processed for uploading)
3. Upload

Note. If you want to upload images captured with the Mapillary mobile apps, you need to take some extra steps to make sure the images copied to your computer are geotagged. For iOS, see the instructions here. For Android, you need to use designated software to add location data to images from the separately saved GPX file.

If you are a member of an organization on Mapillary, you will see the option to change your upload target (individual or organization, public or private imagery). Do that before you add imagery (if you forget, you need to reprocess the images before uploading—read below how to do that).

Drag and drop or browse for a folder that contains your images (to avoid errors, please make sure the folder name doesn't contain special characters). Note that you can’t add individual images, just folders. You can only add one folder at a time. However, the folders can contain subfolders—the uploader is capable of handling that.

When you’ve added a folder, the images it contains will be pre-processed and you will see their locations displayed on the map. Depending on the volume, this may take some time. At this stage, the images are not yet uploaded. Note that if you’re trying to add a folder that contains images which have already been processed previously, the uploader will remember that and prompt you to resume the upload (even if you've added new images to the folder that are not processed).

When the imagery has been processed, you can preview it by clicking on an image marker on the map and then the image icon on the right-hand side. You can also see image details if you click on the button in the viewer that says EXIF.

If you want, you can edit the compass angle of the whole batch before you upload. Click on “Advanced options” and enter the offset angle in degrees (0 for north, 90 for east, 180 for south, 270 for west).

Finally, click “Upload” to start uploading the prepared images to Mapillary. You can leave your computer; the application will prevent it from going to sleep before it has completed the upload. This way, you can easily opt to upload images at the time you’re not using your bandwidth for other things (e.g. overnight).

 

Upload history and retrying uploads

At the top right of the Uploader window, you can see a button for accessing your upload history. There you’ll see all your uploads—completed as well as failed ones. This will help you keep track of what you’ve managed to upload. You can see which imagery target you uploaded to, how many images, when, and whether the upload was successful. For failed or canceled uploads, you can click the “Retry” button right there to resume the upload.

From the three dots at the end of the row, you can access some additional options such as opening the folder on your file system that contains the images, deleting the images from your computer, or removing this upload from the uploads list. You can also see the file size of the imagery (if the upload has failed, the file size is still shown for the total batch, not just the images that got uploaded).

 

Aborting the upload and reprocessing images

The current version of the Desktop Uploader doesn't include editing options and expects that you have prepared your imagery before adding the folder to the uploader. If you discover in the processing screen that you still need to change something (e.g. remove certain images) or forgot to choose the correct upload target, you need to reprocess the imagery.

As mentioned earlier, the uploader will remember if you’ve already processed a folder and prompt you to resume the upload. To prevent that and be able to reprocess the imagery, you need to delete the log files that were created during the previous processing.

Go to the folder (or subfolders) in your Finder (macOS) or Explorer (Windows) that contain the images and delete the hidden folder called .mapillary. To see it, you need to toggle viewing hidden files:

• Hold down `Cmd` + `Shift + `.` (period) in the Finder on macOS
• Change the folder settings on Windows—see here for instructions for different OS versions

After deleting the .mapillary folder, you can add the image folder to the uploader again to reprocess the contents (instead of resuming the upload).

Note. If you've processed the imagery previously with our command line tools, you may not be able to upload it successfully with the Desktop Uploader. We recommend that you complete the upload with command line tools as well in that case. This is a known issue that we'll try to address in the next release.

 

Error and bug reporting

If you run into any errors with the Uploader, please email us at support@mapillary.com and provide the following information:

• Description of the problem (what happened vs what did you expect)
• Platform (macOS or Windows)
• App version (from the "About" menu item)
• A detailed description of the steps taken
• Screenshots or videos illustrating the problem
• Logfiles

To find the logfiles (you may need to allow viewing hidden files, see the previous section):

• On macOS: ~/Library/Logs/<app name>/log.log
  For example: ~/Library/Logs/Mapillary\ Uploader/log.log (expanded to /Users/username/Library/Logs/Mapillary\ Uploader/log.log)
• On Windows: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\<app name>\log.log
  For example: C:\Users\IEUser\AppData\Roaming\Mapillary Uploader\log.log