How does the backend know where to place a file once its sent

[mohannadwahmad17]

How does the backend know where to place a file once its sent?

im using django and when i receive the request object containing the file data, theres nothing about the file path. i notice on the example backend there is an expected parentId, but i dont see that when the request hits my api, and im not seeing anywhere it was added manually.

anything would help, thank you so much

[Saifullah-dev]

@mohannadwahmad17 The backend relies on parentId to know which folder the file should be placed into. By default, the request only includes the file data itself — it won’t automatically include any folder context. That’s why you need to explicitly attach the parentId when uploading.

The FileManager component provides a callback you can use to customize what metadata gets sent with the file upload request. In your case, you’ll want to send the parentId of the folder where the file should go. Whatever object you return in this callback will be appended to the file upload request in the FormData.

const handleFileUploading = (file, parentFolder) => {
  return { parentId: parentFolder?._id };
};

• parentId present → save inside that folder
• parentId missing/nulll → save at root

This ensures that every upload request includes the folder reference. On the backend (Django, in your case), you can then read parentId from the request body and use it to determine the correct destination path for the uploaded file.

I should’ve made this clearer in the documentation — thanks for pointing it out!