private file handling with laravel

problem statement

When you store files like pictures, videos, or other files, yo do not store them in the public folder but in a private folder that is not publicly accessible. Because only certain users should have access to the files.

How can you output multiple images from a private folder?

solution 1

To speed up you could do it via plain PHP (headers + read file):

 header('Content-Type: image/jpeg');
       header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($thumbnail));
       readfile($thumbnail);
       exit;

You can keep it to Laravel-style type code then something like this would do just fine

$headers = [
    'Content-Type' => 'image/jpeg', // if single type if not determine type
    'Content-Length' => filesize($thumbnail),
];
return response()->file($thumbnail, $headers);

You can optimize this with caching headers and any other flavor stuff.