Take Photo vs Choose Files

When you go to upload a photo on mobile, you see two buttons:

• 📷 Take Photo — opens your camera app directly so you can take a fresh photo.
• 📁 Choose Files — opens your gallery (or your phone's file picker) so you can pick an existing photo.

This article explains why these are two buttons instead of one.

The technical reason

HTML has a capture attribute on file inputs. When set to environment (rear camera) or user (front camera), some browsers open the camera directly. When unset, browsers open whatever the OS file picker is — usually a chooser screen with options like "Camera", "Gallery", "Files".

Different browsers handle the unset case differently:

• iOS Safari without capture: shows a sheet with Camera / Photo Library / Choose File.
• Chrome on Android without capture: opens the system file picker, which on most Androids includes Camera as one option.
• Desktop browsers ignore the capture attribute entirely.

The result, before this change, was that one button labelled "Choose Files" did completely different things on iOS, Android, and desktop. People got confused: "I clicked Choose Files but it opened the camera" on Android, or "I clicked Take Photo but the camera didn't open" on Firefox.

The fix

Two buttons, two distinct behaviours:

• Take Photo has capture="environment". On iOS Safari and Chrome on Android, it opens the camera. On desktop, it's hidden because the camera-capture-from-file-input experience is unhelpful (it usually opens a gallery, not the webcam).
• Choose Files has no capture. On every device, it opens the file picker.

On mobile you can use either. On desktop you only see Choose Files.

What you'll typically use

• Take Photo when you're standing in front of the thing right now and want to document it. The most common path.
• Choose Files when you've already taken photos and want to upload them in a batch.

Both inputs share the same name

Internally both buttons submit to the same form field (photos[]). If you use Take Photo for one shot and Choose Files for two more, all three submit together. The form merges them.

Status indicator

Below the buttons, a small green text appears as you select files: ✓ filename.jpg for one, ✓ 3 files selected for many. This confirms your selection actually registered before you hit Save.

Common questions

Why is Take Photo missing on my desktop? Because the camera-capture-from-file-input behaviour on desktop is bad UX. Most desktop browsers either ignore capture (showing the same file picker as Choose Files) or open a generic webcam interface that doesn't take photos in any useful way. We hide the button to avoid confusion. Use Choose Files on desktop.

Why is Take Photo there on my desktop with a touchscreen? The CSS detection uses @media (hover: hover) and (pointer: fine) — this matches "regular desktop with mouse". Touchscreen laptops sometimes register as pointer: coarse, in which case Take Photo will show. Harmless — it'll work or do nothing depending on the browser.

Can I disable Take Photo? No setting for that. If you find it distracting, just don't use it.