Macaulay Library / eBird (Cornell Lab of Ornithology)
- Free allowance
- No published per-account byte quota — tens of millions of assets, and Cornell explicitly positions it as backup: 'the archive serves as your personal cloud storage and backup of your media files.' Capacity is bounded by per-file and per-checklist caps, not by an account quota.
- Verdict
- caveatusable, with a named limit or an unprobed read path
- Cost
- free tier
- Identity
- emailno card, no phone
- Binding limit
- per-object-cap20 MB/file; 500 MB/file
- Evidence
- reported4 sources; a third party said so
- Freshness
- stale on 2026-11-05checked 2026-10-21 (inherited); stale on 2026-11-05
| Free tier | No published per-account byte quota — tens of millions of assets, and Cornell explicitly positions it as backup: 'the archive serves as your personal cloud storage and backup of your media files.' Capacity is bounded by per-file and per-checklist caps, not by an account quota. unit mixed; metered on stored-bytes |
|---|---|
| Price | none stated |
| Limits | photo 20 MB/file (JPG); audio 500 MB/file (WAV); video 1 GB/file (MP4/MOV/M4V, ≥720p); 20 photos + 10 audio per species per checklist; 10 video files per species |
| Identity | email email — eBird account is a Cornell Lab account with an email address; no institutional requirement documented. |
| Egress | originals are downloadable BY THE OWNER ONLY ('your original uploaded files are available for you to download at any time by clicking the Download original link'). Public read is view/embed only; bulk research access is a manual request queue. |
| Per-object cap | 20 MB/file (20000000 bytes) |
| Retention | not stated |
| Interface | cli eBird checklist upload (web + Manage Media page); Macaulay Library catalog pages; no documented public write API |
| Tooling | no CLI. The uploader is a browser tool. Media search has an API but it sits behind an Anubis proof-of-work wall. |
| Composes with | Not chainable programmatically — the write path is a UI and the read path returns re-encoded previews, not originals, to anyone but the owner. |
| Reliability | Classic rule-2 pattern: upload-open, read-gated. Your own originals come back, but nobody else's do, and the media endpoints are behind Anubis PoW (search.macaulaylibrary.org/api/v1/search returned the 'Making sure you're not a bot!' interstitial). |
| Parsed numbers |
|
Evidence 4
| date | source | what it proved |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-21 | support.ebird.org/en/support/solutions/articles/48000825713- | 'Upload full-resolution images ... under 20 MB each'; 'Uncompressed .WAV ... up to 500 MB each'; 'maximum 20 photos, 10 audio per species' |
| 2026-10-21 | support.ebird.org/en/support/solutions/articles/48001064314 | video: 'max 1 GB per file ... up to 10 files per species per checklist' |
| 2026-10-21 | support.ebird.org/en/support/solutions/articles/48001064551- | 'media are not available for personal download unless they belong to you' |
| 2026-10-21 | search.macaulaylibrary.org/api/v1/search?taxonCode=norcar&co | returned the Anubis PoW interstitial, not JSON |
Unknown values 3
- per object cap notes: the field may be stated in a source that was not read
- retention notes: the field may be stated in a source that was not read
- retention stated: the field may be stated in a source that was not read