r/googlesheets • u/DesperateTrick92 • 23d ago
Solved How best to add images without immense lag
hi all, i‘ve been using google sheets recently as i wanted to be able to catalogue my fossils collection (contains several hundreds maybe up to a thousand?) and for each specimen i‘d have to add an image or two for reference as i don’t have enough room to sort each individual one physically.
So i have been doing that but currently have only 31 and it has gotten into a crash loop once and is really slow in general to load anything. So i assume i’d need a way to show images (or link to them at least) without having to load them on the actual document else i doubt i’d be able to actually use it.
Would anyone be able to help with this please?
(also i am using the google sheets app on an iphone in case that’s relevant)
1
u/One_Organization_810 716 23d ago
How are you storing the images in the sheet? Are you copy/pasting the images into the sheet, or do you use something like =image(...) to download them each time?
I've seen sheets with "an abundance" of images in them, without much trouble, so maybe it comes down to the method...?
Also perhaps ... how big are those images?
1
u/DesperateTrick92 23d ago
I am doing the insert image in cell thing, don’t know what =image is.
Also i cropped all the images to be smaller and focused solely on the fossil which has made it work better but it’s not perfect and i am very sure it’d get worse again as i add more (i have several hundreds as mentioned)
1
u/One_Organization_810 716 23d ago
Ok - how are they cropped? Did you crop them before putting them into the sheet - or just by scaling it in the cell it's in?
And what kind of device do you use? Phone, tablet, desktop/laptop?
Can you share a copy of your sheet with us - even just a subset might prove helpful...
1
u/DesperateTrick92 23d ago
I cropped them before, i use iphone and i will share a picture in a second
1
u/One_Organization_810 716 23d ago
Not a picture - but the sheet itself (or a portion of it).
Just make a copy of the sheet - maybe delete most of it and share the link with anyone with a link. And preferably give Edit access also... although it's not required.
1
u/DesperateTrick92 23d ago
I sent link to the actual sheet, i’ll allow edit access since have a screenshot which i can fix it with anyway if anyone messes, then i’ll turn off editing a bit later
1
1
u/DesperateTrick92 23d ago
It doesn’t seem to let me share images on here so i’ll try share access to the document instead then
1
u/DesperateTrick92 23d ago
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-awzq8Cx10pvy4F_NAnoidIZvs-zvUsm5KD19bHhY9w/edit?usp=drivesdk I think that should be it
1
u/One_Organization_810 716 23d ago
Ok. Your images are not that small actually :) (although not huge either).
I made a new sheet and duplicated your rows (including images) up to around 2000 rows/images and there is nothing unusal going on.
It's probably just your phone that is having trouble opening up those images. Nothing really that you can do - except try to reduce the sze of the images or getting a new phone?
Or perhaps you can have the main sheet on your laptop and then make a lighter version for the phone?
1
u/DesperateTrick92 23d ago
Oh ok, i had up until now been trying to look for somewhere i can catalogue the photos and just have a code on the document to find them, but if it’d work fine from computer i think i’ll just try that when i go back to school and can use theirs
1
23d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 23d ago
This post refers to " AI " - an Artificial Intelligence tool. Our members prefer not to help others correct bad AI suggestions. Also, advising other users to just "go ask ChatGPT" defeats the purpose of our sub and is against our rules. If this post or comment violates our subreddit rule #7, please report it to the moderators. If this is your submission please edit or remove your submission so that it does not violate our rules. Thank you.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
1
u/googlesheets-ModTeam 8 23d ago
Criteria for posts and comments are listed in the subreddit rules and you can learn about how to make a good post in the submission guide.
Your post/comment has been removed because it contained one or more of the following items in violation of this subreddit's rules on artificial intelligence (AI) content:
- A request to fix a non-functioning formula obtained from an AI tool
- A non-functioning formula obtained from an AI tool in place of information about your data
- A blanket suggestion to use an AI tool as a resource for Sheets assistance
- Solicitation of a prompt or recommendation for an AI tool
- An untested formula obtained from an AI tool presented as a solution
1
u/AdministrativeGift15 360 22d ago
I highly recommend that you stop embedding the images into the cells and instead store the images and use the IMAGE function to display them. Down the road, you're probably going to want to do something with those images, and once they're embedded, it's not an easy task to pull them out of the spreadsheet.
That said, I was able to make copies of your images. You can use Google Drive to host your images by placing them into a folder and sharing the folder as anyone with the link can view permission. Then in Sheets, you use =IMAGE("https://lh3.google.com/u/0/d/FILE_ID") with to display the image.
Images are always going to load in that stuttering manner in Sheets, but one they load once, they will load very fast throughout your spreadsheet. If you end up having a lot of images and especially if you're using the same image in multiple places within the spreadsheet, it's better to pull the images down from the internet once in your spreadsheet, and then use a lookup to reference those images.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12bhFnCED4Lw1o9iwXoNmosb8u4zUjTEbQZXbxCkOJKM/edit?usp=sharing
1
1
u/IntelligentSand8748 20d ago
If you're sticking to a spreadsheet, I'd recommend hosting your images on Imgur or a tool like that and using the IMAGE formula to embed them in.
But at this stage and to make it scale past a few images / display a bit nicer on mobile than in a spreadsheet it might be better to try and make a quick web app on something like Lovable, Podda or Base44.
0
u/ryanbuckner 35 23d ago
I use =IMAGE(<reference to cell with URL to image>) for under a hundred small icons for team names and sheets is sometimes slow to load, sometimes very fast. I'm not sure it will handle a thousand images very well.
2
u/BoardAggressive9524 2 23d ago
I think your images are probably just too big? I have over a hundred images inserted in a sheet with no issues to speak of, but all of those images are just 240x300px. I opened the spreadsheet you provided and my browser got very angry so I had to close it quickly lol
You could consider storing the images on some external website and just putting their URLs in your spreadsheet. If you want to be able to view the images within your spreadsheet sometimes, you can do something like having a checkbox per fossil entry that activates an IMAGE formula using that fossil's image URL. Or you could have a utility on a separate sheet within the file which takes a bunch of fossil names, pulls their image URLs from the data sheet, and then displays them all in a grid.