Pulling external data into CMS

Elements
1

I am having trouble pulling CMS data in from an external server. I have tried iCloud, Google Drive, and OneDrive. I have set sharing permissions and created the cms:posts:post file structure. I receive a “no file found” error. Internally the .md files work great, although the “container” element seems to work partially.

2

the markdown files need to be in your Elements project for things to work!

3
  • Is there a way to pull data from an external source? I would like to be able to update a .md file without having to use Elements on my Mac, but rather create a file, upload to the server, and have that transferred to my website. Does that make sense?

Thank you!

4

If you upload Markdown files directly to the folder connected to your CMS components (via FTP or a file manager on your server), then yes, the live website will detect and display those new files automatically. As long as the files are formatted correctly and placed in the right directory, your live site will read them just like it does for files created inside the app.

This is really useful if you want to add content remotely or automate content generation from another system. However, there’s an important caveat:

:police_car_light: These files won’t appear inside your Elements project.

Since Elements currently does not sync the content of the CMS folder from the server back into the app, any Markdown files you manually upload will only exist on the server and not in your Elements project file. That means:

  • They won’t show up in the CMS folder(s) inside Elements.

  • You won’t be able to edit or manage them from within the app.

  • If you later republish your site from Elements, there’s a risk of overwriting or removing those manually added files.

Best Practice

If you plan to manage posts or data exclusively outside of Elements (e.g., via another system or by editing raw files on the server), that’s totally possible but just be mindful of the one-way sync.

In the future, we’d love to add support for syncing remote CMS data back into Elements, but for now, it’s safest to treat the app as the source of truth for anything you want to manage within the editor.

Hope that makes sense :slight_smile: