Heroku has a read-only file system. This means that Paperclip cannot save downloaded files anywhere in Heroku.
If you want to upload files to an application hosted on Heroku, you must either store the files as binary drops in your database, or you must use a separate service to store the files. If you're looking for a standalone service, Paperclip has built-in integration support with Amazon S3.
See relevant Heroku docs .
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