# Best practices pls for image sharing & storage from anywhere in app **URL:** \ **Category:** Ask for Help\ **Created:** [October 16, 2021, 1:26pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/best-practices-pls-for-image-sharing-storage-from-anywhere-in-app/33145 "2021-10-16T13:26:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 20
**Author:** ![Darren\_Murphy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/darren_murphy/32/47326_2.png) [@Darren\_Murphy](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Darren_Murphy)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 6:09am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/best-practices-pls-for-image-sharing-storage-from-anywhere-in-app/33145/20 "2021-10-17T06:09:31Z")
> [@L.M](#): > > there’s no existing component that can directly lookup in any table: really? Not really, although Lookup probably isn’t the correct word when referring to components. But you can use components to _display_ data from tables other than the current one. List components, for example. > [@L.M](#): > > there’s no read-only url that can do that like > /my app/mytable/mycol¶m= The closest we have to this are [Deep Links](https://docs.glideapps.com/all/reference/design-and-structure/deep-links) > [@L.M](#): > > the one and only magic directly shareable table and hence columns are the User Profiles Yes, but generally I find that adequate. I don’t disagree though that it would be useful to have tables that could be marked as globally accessible. A good use case for this would be a place to store “global variables” or app level settings, both of which usually wind up in the User Profiles table. > [@L.M](#): > > if you want to access any column outside your current table (whose DATA are editable in the Builder), you create a column with a lookup or any formula to catch the column value of another table/the User Profiles. And you ref your current column in your component. Yes, more or less. > [@L.M](#): > > If the desired ref is an image url, display it in anything that does not render as image and copy the generated url to your component. I’m not sure why you would want/need to, but yes you can certainly do this. > [@L.M](#): > > If the User Profiles is so supercharged to share all desired values/resources, you’d better think of backup strategy like exporting to CSV, if the User Profiles Table is not a Google Sheet. An IT file can always be corrupted… I don’t really see this as a concern. I do personally almost always use a Google Sheet for my user profiles, but for other reasons: - I think it’s good practice to always have a Google Spreadsheet as the data source for your Glide app, due to some of the current limitations of Glide tables. Most notably the difficulty in importing/exporting in bulk, and integrating with external sources (API’s, etc). So when I start a new app, the first thing I usually do is create a Google Spreadsheet with a single sheet, which becomes my User Profiles table. - Often some of the data in my User Profiles is sourced and/or shared with other applications, so it’s easier to do that if it’s based on a Google Sheet. - I use a lot of Apps Script in my projects, so I always need a Google Spreadsheet. > [@L.M](#): > > 1. any performance, display latency differences? between > > - ref directly from User Profiles column > - ref from current table column with direct uploaded image > - ref from current table column with lookup to User Profiles column > - ref from current table with lookup to any other table column Nope, not that I’ve noticed. Glide computed columns are incredibly powerful, and because everything happens locally on the user device there is rarely any noticeable degradation in user experience as the number and/or complexity of computed columns increases. I have one app that has roughly 1500 computed columns, and it works fine. --- _[View the full topic](https://community.glideapps.com/t/best-practices-pls-for-image-sharing-storage-from-anywhere-in-app/33145)._