Media offload is fail-open. If local storage raises an error, the run can still succeed and persist the inline media instead of a MediaReference.
media_storage_local.py
"""
Local Media Storage
===================
Demonstrates LocalMediaStorage, which writes media to the filesystem and keeps only a
MediaReference in the database. For development; use S3MediaStorage or GCSMediaStorage
in production.
URL-only media is skipped by default. Set persist_remote_urls=True to download and store it.
"""
import httpx
from agno.agent import Agent
from agno.db.sqlite import SqliteDb
from agno.media import Image
from agno.media.storage import LocalMediaStorage
from agno.models.openai import OpenAIResponses
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Setup
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
IMAGE_URL = "https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/mountain-landscape-pieniny-national-park-foot-tatra-mountains-mountain-landscape-pieniny-national-park-437239881.jpg?w=768"
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Approach 1: Pre-download the media yourself and send bytes.
# URL-only media is skipped by default.
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
storage = LocalMediaStorage(base_path="./tmp/media_storage")
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Create the Agent
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
agent = Agent(
model=OpenAIResponses(id="gpt-5.5"),
media_storage=storage,
db=SqliteDb(db_file="tmp/data.db"),
)
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Approach 2: Use the flag persist_remote_urls=True.
# This will download every URL-only media automatically and store it locally.
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
storage_with_persist = LocalMediaStorage(
base_path="./tmp/media_storage",
persist_remote_urls=True,
)
agent_with_persist = Agent(
model=OpenAIResponses(id="gpt-5.5"),
media_storage=storage_with_persist,
db=SqliteDb(db_file="tmp/data.db"),
)
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Run the Agents
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
if __name__ == "__main__":
# Download image content first so media storage can offload it
image_bytes = httpx.get(IMAGE_URL, follow_redirects=True).content
agent.print_response(
"What do you see in this image?",
images=[Image(content=image_bytes, format="jpeg", mime_type="image/jpeg")],
)
# URL-only media is NOT stored locally by default — it is skipped during offload.
agent.print_response(
"What do you see in this image?",
images=[Image(url=IMAGE_URL)],
)
# URL-only images are automatically downloaded and stored when persist_remote_urls=True
agent_with_persist.print_response(
"What do you see in this image?",
images=[Image(url=IMAGE_URL)],
)
Run the Example
1
Set up your virtual environment
uv venv --python 3.12
source .venv/bin/activate
uv venv --python 3.12
.venv\Scripts\activate
2
Install dependencies
uv pip install -U agno openai sqlalchemy
3
Export your OpenAI API key
export OPENAI_API_KEY="your_openai_api_key_here"
$Env:OPENAI_API_KEY="your_openai_api_key_here"
4
Run the example
Save the code above as
media_storage_local.py, then run:python media_storage_local.py