The Interplanetary File System (IPFS) is powerful for a number of reasons, but one of its most powerful and important qualities is its open design. Anyone, anywhere can host and load IPFS content. This means if you want to move files from your own IPFS node or back them up using a pinning service, this is possible. All you need is a content identifier (CID)!

Pinata has been perfecting this process for several years now and it’s one of our most popular features. Now, it’s even better. Here’s a snapshot of the improvements we’ve made:

• Improved design of the queue
• Retry and remove items in the queue
• Add multiple CIDs at once

Before we take a closer look at each of these improvements, let’s make sure we understand what “pinning by CID” is and why it’s important.

Pin By CID

Normally, when you add content to the IPFS network, you either upload it to a pinning service like Pinata, or you add it directly to an IPFS node you run and control. That file then lives on the node(s) it was added to; but what if you want to replicate the content, back it up, or increase its distribution?

You can add any file on the IPFS network to another IPFS node through a process called “pinning by CID.” This process makes use of the IPFS node’s native functionality to search the network for the content you have specified. If it’s found, the node will then import that content and store it on that node. Again, this is helpful for backup, replication, and distribution. Many Pinata customers self-host content on their own smaller IPFS nodes and then use the pin by CID functionality to distribute the content to a wider audience faster. Pinata runs hundreds of IPFS nodes and provides Dedicated IPFS Gateways with built-in edge caching, so it makes sense that many people want to take advantage of local content and distributed content.

Developers can use Pinata’s API to pin by CID, but they may not want to go through that effort to pin a few CIDs to Pinata nodes. Just because they are developers doesn’t mean they always want to write code. Not when there’s an easy and intuitive interface. After all:

Pin by CID is a powerful feature to distribute content across multiple IPFS nodes, and it’s something Pinata has supported since its start. Now, it’s even better.

Improved Queue Design

When a CID is added via the Pin by CID option in the app or through the API, it undergoes a searching process. Remember, the IPFS node that will take in the content has to find it first. During this process, the CIDs that are going to be pinned are added to a queue. Our new Pin by CID queue stays out of the way unless you want to see it.

In this new design, you might notice something else that’s new: remove and retry functionality.

Remove or Retry CIDs

In the past, if a CID could not be found on the network and the process failed, the CID would live in the Pin by CID queue forever… Or until the customer reached out to support and asked us to remove it manually. Not anymore!

Now, you can remove a file from the queue with one click. If an item fails for any reason, you can quickly retry it with the press of a button rather than re-entering the info.

Before even managing the queue, we’ve improved the process of getting CIDs into the Pin by CID queue.

Add Multiple CIDs At Once

In the past, when using the Pinata web app, you could only add one CID at a time to the Pin by CID queue. This worked for most non-technical users, but developers were often frustrated and would need to turn to writing a script to add more than one item at a time.

Now, anyone can add multiple CIDs at once.

Conclusion

Pin by CID is one of the more useful functionalities of IPFS, and one of Pinata’s more popular features. We’re excited to bring these improvements. More to come, so stay tuned!

Happy Pinning!