Macaulay Library / eBird

macaulaylibrary.org · Storage · 1 record · JSON

Macaulay Library / eBird (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) Storage

caveatemailno cardRper-object-cap

www.macaulaylibrary.org · biodiversity media archive · storage/macaulay-library-ebird · JSON · compare

Free tier	No published per-account byte quota — tens of millions of assets, and Cornell explicitly positions it as backup: 'the archive serves as your personal cloud storage and backup of your media files.' Capacity is bounded by per-file and per-checklist caps, not by an account quota. unit mixed; metered on stored-bytes
Price	none stated
Per-object cap	20 MB/file (20000000 bytes)
Retention	not stated
Egress	originals are downloadable BY THE OWNER ONLY ('your original uploaded files are available for you to download at any time by clicking the Download original link'). Public read is view/embed only; bulk research access is a manual request queue.
Identity	email email — eBird account is a Cornell Lab account with an email address; no institutional requirement documented.
Limits	per-object-cap 20 MB/file source per-object-cap 500 MB/file source photo 20 MB/file (JPG); audio 500 MB/file (WAV); video 1 GB/file (MP4/MOV/M4V, ≥720p); 20 photos + 10 audio per species per checklist; 10 video files per species
Binding	per-object-cap the per-object cap sets the shard size and therefore the object count; it bounds the total more tightly than any headline quota
Interface	cli eBird checklist upload (web + Manage Media page); Macaulay Library catalog pages; no documented public write API
Tooling	no CLI. The uploader is a browser tool. Media search has an API but it sits behind an Anubis proof-of-work wall.
Composes with	Not chainable programmatically — the write path is a UI and the read path returns re-encoded previews, not originals, to anyone but the owner.
Reliability	Classic rule-2 pattern: upload-open, read-gated. Your own originals come back, but nobody else's do, and the media endpoints are behind Anubis PoW (search.macaulaylibrary.org/api/v1/search returned the 'Making sure you're not a bot!' interstitial).
Notes	No published per-account byte quota — tens of millions of assets, and Cornell explicitly positions it as backup: 'the archive serves as your personal cloud storage and backup of your media files.' Capacity is bounded by per-file and per-checklist caps, not by an account quota.
Evidence rung	reported One page read moves it to documented.
Checked	2026-10-21 (inherited); stale on 2026-11-04
Parsed numbers	`$.limits[0].value` limit:per-object-cap 20.0 MB `$.limits[1].value` limit:per-object-cap 500.0 MB

Evidence (4)

date	source	what it proved
2026-10-21	support.ebird.org/en/support/solutions/articles/48000825713-	'Upload full-resolution images ... under 20 MB each'; 'Uncompressed .WAV ... up to 500 MB each'; 'maximum 20 photos, 10 audio per species'
2026-10-21	support.ebird.org/en/support/solutions/articles/48001064314	video: 'max 1 GB per file ... up to 10 files per species per checklist'
2026-10-21	support.ebird.org/en/support/solutions/articles/48001064551-	'media are not available for personal download unless they belong to you'
2026-10-21	search.macaulaylibrary.org/api/v1/search?taxonCode=norcar&co	returned the Anubis PoW interstitial, not JSON

Unknown or withheld values (4)

$.free_tier.notes process
$.per_object_cap.notes not-extracted
$.retention.notes not-extracted
$.retention.stated not-extracted

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