Static Assets

Next.js can serve static files, like images, under a folder called public in the root directory. Files inside public can then be referenced by your code starting from the base URL (/).

For example, if you add me.png inside public, the following code will access the image:

import Image from 'next/image'
 
export function Avatar() {
  return <Image src="/me.png" alt="me" width="64" height="64" />
}

Caching

Next.js automatically adds caching headers to immutable assets in the public folder. The default caching headers applied are:

Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable

Robots, Favicons, and others

The folder is also useful for robots.txt, favicon.ico, Google Site Verification, and any other static files (including .html). But make sure to not have a static file with the same name as a file in the pages/ directory, as this will result in an error. Read more.

Good to know:

• The directory must be named public. The name cannot be changed and it's the only directory used to serve static assets.
• Only assets that are in the public directory at build time will be served by Next.js. Files added at request time won't be available. We recommend using a third-party service like AWS S3 for persistent file storage.