Java SDK

The Cloudinary Java SDK provides simple, yet comprehensive image and video upload, transformation, optimization, and delivery capabilities through the Cloudinary APIs, that you can implement using code that integrates seamlessly with your existing Java application.

How would you like to learn?

Resource	Description
Java quick start	Get up and running in five minutes with a walk through of installation, configuration, upload, management and transformations.
Sample projects	Explore sample projects to see how to implement Cloudinary functionality such as upload and delivery with transformations.
Cloudinary Java SDK GitHub repo	Explore the source code and see the CHANGELOG for details on all new features and fixes from previous versions.
	Try the free Introduction to Cloudinary for Java Developers online course, where you can learn how to upload, manage, transform and optimize your digital assets.

Install

The easiest way to start using Cloudinary's Java library is to use Maven.

Prerequisites

If you don't already have Maven installed:

1. Download and install Maven (the build tool). Refer to https://maven.apache.org/download.cgi for package downloads and detailed installation instructions.
2. Create a Maven project. See example here.

Choose the right Cloudinary package

The Maven repository includes several Cloudinary Java packages ("artifacts"). Choose the package(s) that fit your application type:

• cloudinary-http5 - for general Java applications. It utilizes the Apache HTTP libraries. When working with SDK versions v2.x, only HTTP 5 is available.
• cloudinary-taglib - provides a Java Tag Library for J2EE applications
• cloudinary-android - provides support for Android applications

Add Cloudinary to your project

1. Add the appropriate Cloudinary dependency to the list of dependencies in your pom.xml.

   For general Java applications, add cloudinary-http5:

2. If you're building a Java EE web application, also add the cloudinary-taglib package:

Configure

Set required configuration parameters

To use the Cloudinary Java library, you have to set at least your cloud_name. An api_key and api_secret are also needed for secure API calls to Cloudinary (e.g., image and video uploads).

You can set the configuration parameters globally using one of the options shown below, or programmatically in each call to a Cloudinary method. Parameters set in a call to a Cloudinary method override globally set parameters.

Option 1: Environment variable configuration (with Singleton)

To define the CLOUDINARY_URL environment variable:

1. Copy the API environment variable format from the API Keys page of the Cloudinary Console Settings.
2. Replace <your_api_key> and <your_api_secret> with your actual values. Your cloud name is already correctly included in the format.

For example:

Once the environment variable is configured, retrieve a Cloudinary singleton instance in your code. This is the recommended option if you're using JSP tag libraries, as they require an instance to be available in the Singleton.

Option 2: Direct instance creation

Create a Cloudinary instance directly with your configuration parameters.

This approach creates a regular instance without using the singleton pattern. Use this for simple applications where you don't need JSP tag library support.

Option 3: Manual singleton registration

If you need to manually register a Cloudinary instance as a singleton (for example, when using JSP tag libraries without environment variables):

Set additional configuration parameters

In addition to the required configuration parameters, you can define a number of optional configuration parameters if relevant.

The following example shows appending secure_distribution and upload_prefix to the environment variable:

Use

Once you've installed and configured the Java SDK, import the package and then you can use it for:

• Uploading files to your product environment: You can upload any files, not only images and videos, set your own naming conventions and overwrite policies, moderate and tag your assets on upload, and much more. See example
• Transforming and optimizing images and videos: Keeping your original assets intact in your product environment, you can deliver different versions of your media - different sizes, formats, with effects and overlays, customized for your needs. See example
• Managing assets: Using methods from the Admin and Upload APIs, you can organize your assets, for example, list, rename and delete them, add tags and metadata and use advanced search capabilities. See example

Import the package

When using in Java code, import the package:

When using in a JSP view, import the tag library:

Quick example: File upload

The following Java code uploads the dog.mp4 video using the public_id, my_dog. The video overwrites the existing my_dog video if it exists. When the video upload finishes, the specified notification URL receives details about the uploaded media asset.

Quick example: Transform and optimize

Take a look at the following transformation code and the image it delivers:

This relatively simple code performs all of the following on the original front_face.jpg image before delivering it:

• Crop to a 150x150 thumbnail using face-detection gravity to automatically determine the location for the crop
• Round the corners with a 20 pixel radius
• Apply a sepia effect
• Overlay the Cloudinary logo on the southeast corner of the image (with a slight offset). Scale the logo overlay down to a 50 pixel width, with increased brightness and partial transparency (opacity = 60%).
• Rotate the resulting image (including the overlay) by 10 degrees
• Convert and deliver the image in PNG format (the originally uploaded image was a JPG)
• Optimize the image to reduce the size of the image without impacting visual quality.

And here's the URL that's automatically generated and included in an image tag from the above code:

In a similar way, you can transform a video.

Quick example: Get details of a single asset

The following Java example uses the Admin API resource method to return details of the image with public ID cld-sample:

Sample response

Java-specific features

You can use Cloudinary's Java SDK for any Java application. However, this SDK also provides some extra Java-specific functionality:

• JSP tag library to ease and facilitate the inclusion, transformation, upload, and storage in a Java EE web application
• Server-side file upload + direct unsigned file upload from the browser using the jQuery plugin
• Build URLs for image and video transformation
• API wrappers: file upload, administration, transformations, and more

Sample projects

Take a look at the Java sample projects page to help you get started integrating Cloudinary into your Java application.