Laravel: How to Change the Upload Directory and Move it to public/uploads

If you've had a client using Plesk or cPanel hosting, you might have encountered the issue where these panels block symbolic links, resulting in a 403 Forbidden status.

To fix this issue, the best solution is to change Laravel's default storage/app/public directory to public/uploads. This way, you can avoid symbolic links altogether.

To make this change, open your config/filesystems.php file.

'public' => [
    'driver' => 'local',
    'root' => public_path('uploads'),
    'url' => env('APP_URL').'/uploads',
    'visibility' => 'public',
    'throw' => false,
],

That's it! Laravel will now use public/uploads for uploads with public visibility. No further changes are needed.