Error while importing photos from local folders (help)

[yaseenhamid]

Hi. I have 1 folder (named power bi villas photos photos).  It further contains 2 folders (named 16 Mar 2023 and 6 May 2023).  These 2 subfolders have photos that I'm trying to import (3.jpeg etc) .  Power bi imports the folder path in a column, from which I'm extracting dates (I.e 16 march 2023 and 6 May 2023).  But during last step when I try to expand the content column it shows error 'we didn't recognize the format of your first file (3.jpeg). Please filter the list of files...' 

[AnastasiaS]

Hello @yaseenhamid 

Indeed the combine feature works with only specific datasources like text, excel, csv files, workbooks... In your case I suppose that you only need to get the "image" from those files and be able to use it in your reports.

Check this article from Chris Webb where he explains step-by-step how to do it : https://blog.crossjoin.co.uk/2019/05/19/storing-large-images-in-power-bi-datasets/ 

There is a shorter way with just concatenating the "data:image/jpeg;base64 ," to the binary content, but if your image is large this could not work properly. You'll have a cropped image. This is why I suggest to directly check Chris' article where he shows how to manage larger files. There is still a limit of size, so it depends on your files.

Tell me if that works!

Regards,

[yaseenhamid]

I want to use a date slicer with it. And filter dates which are in 6 May 2023 folder and so on. 

[AnastasiaS]

Sure, if your folder is always named as following, "dd-mmm-yyyy" you can just duplicate your FolderPath.9 column, rename it as "Reference date" for example:

and change its type to Date:

-> 

It should normally work as expected and transform your column to date type.

Then, you'll be able to use it to filter data.

Hope I understood well your question.

And then, if you want to use the images in a visual like table for example, you can use the steps from the mentioned article.