Embedding a file on your own site

An embed link points at the file itself rather than at a download page, so a browser on somebody else's website can load it directly. It is what you want for a logo on a landing page, an image in a newsletter, or an asset your developer needs a stable URL for.

Embeds are on Pro, Max and Business. That is not an arbitrary gate: an embed is created with no expiry, and a link with no expiry is itself a paid-plan setting.

Making one#

1. 1

   Select exactly one file

   No multi-select. An embed points at a single file by design. Some accounts can also select a single folder instead, which is how you publish an HTML page that has its own stylesheet and scripts: see the section below.

2. 2

   Press Share, then the Embed tab

   At the top of the share panel, beside Share.

3. 3

   Press Create embed

   You get a URL of the form nemilab.com/embed/<link id>/<file id>. Copy it.

<img src="https://nemilab.com/embed/your-link-id/your-file-id" alt="Studio logo">

The URL is just a URL: it works in an <img> tag, as a CSS background, in a <video> source, or anywhere else a web page can reference a file. Nemi answers it with the file itself and allows any site to load it, so you do not have to list your domains anywhere.

Putting an HTML page online#

An embed of an .html file is served as a page, not as a file to save, so opening the link shows the page and putting the link in an <iframe> shows it inside your own site. Its CSS and its JavaScript run.

A page is rarely one file, so this is where embedding a folder comes in. Share the folder that holds the site and Nemi serves it as a small website: index.html at the root of the link is the home page, and every relative link in it, style.css, assets/app.js, images/logo.png, a link to another page, resolves against the other files in that same folder. Nothing outside the folder you picked is reachable, so the folder is the boundary.

<iframe src="https://nemilab.com/embed/your-link-id" title="Our menu" width="100%" height="600"></iframe>

What a hosted page can and cannot do#

Your page runs in a sandbox, because it is served from nemilab.com and we will not let a file anyone uploads act as if it were Nemi. Almost everything a page normally does still works, and a few things do not.

• Works: HTML, CSS, images, fonts, video and audio, JavaScript including modules, canvas and WebGL, fetching data from other sites, forms, and links that open in a new tab.
• Does not work: cookies, localStorage and sessionStorage, which are all unavailable, so anything that tries to remember a visitor between page loads will fail.
• Does not work: changing the address bar with the History API, which is what most single-page routers use. Routing based on the part of the URL after a # works fine.
• Does not work: replacing the page that framed you. A hosted page cannot navigate the site it is embedded in.

What an embed will not serve#

• Executables and scripts are refused outright, whatever the link says. That includes .exe, .dmg, .apk, .sh, .bat, .jar and their relatives.
• A file that our virus scan has flagged, or has not finished checking, is not served either. A brand new upload can therefore take a moment before its embed works.
• Requests are rate limited per visitor, so one page hammering the URL is throttled rather than billed to you.
• Search engines are asked not to index embed URLs, so a page hosted this way will not turn up in search results.

Managing embeds#

They live in their own tab in the link manager (⌘⇧L), separate from ordinary share links, and each card shows how many copies have been served. Deleting an embed stops it everywhere at once, which will leave a gap on any page still using it, so search your site before you delete.