There are many reasons for wanting to enable file uploads from within your Drupal install. For CTCNet Chicago, it simply became too cumbersome to create individual FTP accounts for anyone who needed to be able to upload files to the site. Other uses could be to allow users to upload images to the site, or supporting documents, pdf files, text files, etc. Fortunately, there's a very simple and elegant solution for this built-in to Drupal already.
- Log in with an administrative username and password for your Drupal site.
- Click on Administer, and then on Modules. Find the module called Upload near the bottom of the list (the list is in alphabetical order by default). Click the check box to enable it. Then click the Save Configuration button at the bottom of the list.
- The Administer submenu options should still be listed. Click on Settings.
- Click on Uploads to view the settings for the module you just enabled.
- Set limits on the file sizes users can upload, and the maximum image size. It's a good idea to set limits even if you trust your users.
You should note that only users with the file upload permission enabled will be able to upload files, as a security precaution. You may want to create a user role with this permission so you can easily authorize users to upload files, if you anticipate needing to make this available to a large number of site visitors
