Camera & media hosting

How photos and videos are saved#

The camera takes photos and records videos of up to 60 seconds. Each capture is uploaded straight from the player's phone to your media host, so the shutter never waits and nothing large travels over the game connection. A "Photo saved" or "Video saved" notification confirms each one.

The same host stores Clips videos, custom wallpapers and contact photos.

Nothing is saved until a media host is configured: the camera shows an error and phoneadmin selftest warns that no media host is set. Choose one host in config/media_server.lua:

Config.MediaUpload = {
    provider = 'fivemanage',   -- or 'self_hosted'
    ...
}

media_server.lua is loaded on the server only, so keys in it never reach players. To keep your choice through updates, set it in a file in config/local/server/ instead, such as Config.MediaUpload.provider = 'self_hosted'. Never put media settings in config/local/ itself, which players can read.

Option A: Fivemanage#

No server setup is needed.

1. Create an account at fivemanage.com and create an API key for media in the dashboard.

2. Add the key to server.cfg above ensure wd_phone:

   server.cfgCopy

   set FIVEMANAGE_MEDIA_API_KEY "your-key"

   You can put it in fivemanageApiKey in config/media_server.lua instead. If both are set, the config value is used.

3. Leave provider = 'fivemanage'.

4. Restart the resource and run phoneadmin selftest report in the server console. It should report [PASS] media host fivemanage.

The key never reaches players: for each capture, the server exchanges it for a one-time upload link. Your Fivemanage plan's storage and file-size limits apply: the free plan includes 10 GB, and a minute of video is about 19 MB.

Separate keys per file type. To use separate Fivemanage projects or quotas, set any of these as well. A type without its own key uses the shared key above.

set FIVEMANAGE_IMAGE_API_KEY "..."   # photos and video thumbnails
set FIVEMANAGE_VIDEO_API_KEY "..."   # videos

Custom CDN domain. If you set one up in Fivemanage, add it to fivemanageHosts in config/media_server.lua. Saved file links must be on one of these hosts.

Option B: Self-hosted#

Files are stored in the resource and served by your FiveM server. You need a domain with HTTPS in front of the server's HTTP port (the game port, 30120 by default).

1. DNS: point a hostname at the machine running the server, for example img.yourserver.com.

2. Reverse proxy: forward only /wd_phone/upload/* and /wd_phone/media/* to the server, and allow request bodies up to your largest video (40 MB by default).

   With Caddy, which gets the HTTPS certificate automatically:

   CaddyfileCopy

   img.yourserver.com {
       request_body {
           max_size 50MB
       }
       @phone path /wd_phone/upload/* /wd_phone/media/*
       handle @phone {
           reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:30120
       }
       handle {
           respond 404
       }
   }

   With nginx and a certificate from certbot:

   nginxCopy

   server {
       listen 443 ssl http2;
       server_name img.yourserver.com;
       ssl_certificate     /etc/letsencrypt/live/img.yourserver.com/fullchain.pem;
       ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/img.yourserver.com/privkey.pem;
       client_max_body_size 50m;
   
       location ~ ^/wd_phone/(upload|media)/ {
           proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:30120;
           proxy_set_header Host $host;
           proxy_request_buffering off;
       }
       location / { return 404; }
   }

3. Config in config/media_server.lua:

   luaCopy

   provider = 'self_hosted',
   selfHostedPublicUrl = 'https://img.yourserver.com',  -- no trailing slash, no resource name

4. Check the proxy: open https://img.yourserver.com/wd_phone/media/000000000000000000000000.jpg in a browser. Not found means the proxy reaches the server; a proxy error page or timeout means it does not.

5. Restart the resource and run phoneadmin selftest report ([PASS] media host self_hosted).

The proxy can listen on another HTTPS port: include it in the URL, such as https://img.yourserver.com:8443.

Keep the media_uploads/ folder when you update the resource, and include it in your backups. A file is deleted when its photo or video is permanently deleted from the Gallery.

Camera options#

Edit these in config/media.lua:

Players control the camera with the mouse, the zoom buttons or the scroll wheel, and these keys: Enter takes a photo or records, Up flips between the rear and selfie camera, Left and Right switch between Video and Photo, Space toggles the flash and Esc closes it. Buttons at the top switch the flash, portrait or landscape, and a 3×3 grid. The flash really lights the scene for a moment when the photo is taken. Left Alt releases the cursor to walk and look around. On foot, walking forward goes where the camera points.

The camera button on the lock screen, and the Camera control in Control Center, open the camera without unlocking the phone. Messages, a contact's photo and the wallpaper picker can open it too, and get the photo back once it is saved. The camera closes for an incoming call and when the player dies.

Voices in videos#

Videos record no game sound, only player voices. Each player chooses this for themselves, during the phone's setup or later in Settings → Sounds → Voice in videos. It is off until a player turns it on.

• Include my voice in videos lets phones recording nearby pick up the player's voice while they talk in voice chat. Players who leave it off are never recorded.
• Microphone: the player picks their microphone by name. It should be the same one FiveM uses for voice chat. With a voice changer, choose its virtual device so the video has the changed voice.
• The choice is saved on the player's PC, not on the phone item, so it applies to whichever phone they use on that PC.

Voices are placed by distance and direction from the camera and muffled through walls, and only included while pma-voice says that player is talking. Nothing is stored on the server. To turn the feature off for the whole server, set Config.Camera.video.voice.enabled = false.

Test your setup#

1. Restart the resource after changing upload settings.
2. Open Camera, take a photo and record a short video.
3. Open Gallery and play the video.
4. Send the photo to another player in Messages.
5. Reconnect and open the same photo again.

Gallery behavior#

Gallery has five tabs: Photos, grouped by day, Albums, Favorites, Shared, with what other players sent the phone in Messages and Mail, and Deleted, which keeps items for 30 days. Players can select many items at once to delete, restore, add to an album or send by NovaDrop. A storage bar shows how much of the phone's storage is used, 200 MB by default.

• The viewer swipes between items, plays videos, sets a photo as wallpaper and saves a received photo or video into the player's own gallery.
• Its info panel shows the date, size and source. For the player's own photos and videos, Set waypoint leads back to where it was taken.
• Deleting an album does not delete its photos, and a photo already sent in Messages or Mail keeps working after the sender deletes it.

Photos and videos belong to the phone and work without a SIM. Players can share them with someone standing nearby through NovaDrop. Gallery settings are in config/gallery.lua.

Troubleshooting#

Set Config.MediaDebug = true in config/media.lua to log each upload in the server console and F8.

Never share API keys in support logs.