diff --git a/core/clients.py b/core/clients.py
index e80225d9e9f..fee42525e99 100644
--- a/core/clients.py
+++ b/core/clients.py
@@ -645,6 +645,58 @@ async def edit_message(self, message_id: Union[int, str], new_content: str) -> N
             {"$set": {"messages.$.content": new_content, "messages.$.edited": True}},
         )
 
+    async def _handle_attachments(self, message: Message) -> list:
+        attachments = []
+        in_db_storage = self.bot.config.get("in_db_storage")
+        # 8 MB to bytes
+        image_max_size = 1024 * 1024 * 8
+
+        if in_db_storage:
+            for attachment in message.attachments:
+                # TODO this is non ideal
+                # ideally we would async iterate over the attachments so we don't block on io for every attachment
+                image_data = await attachment.read()
+                # Don't store images larger than
+                if len(image_data) > image_max_size:
+                    logger.warning(
+                        "Attachment %s (%s) is too large to store in the database, skipping.",
+                        attachment.filename,
+                        attachment.id,
+                    )
+                    continue
+                attachments.append(
+                    {
+                        "id": attachment.id,
+                        "filename": attachment.filename,
+                        "is_image": attachment.content_type.startswith("image/"),
+                        "size": len(image_data),
+                        "type": "internal",
+                        # URL points to the original discord URL
+                        "url": attachment.url,
+                        # Attachment data is the raw bytes of the image
+                        "attachment_data": image_data,
+                        "content_type": attachment.content_type,
+                        "width": attachment.width,
+                        "height": attachment.height,
+                    }
+                )
+        else:
+            for attachment in message.attachments:
+                attachments.append(
+                    {
+                        "id": attachment.id,
+                        "filename": attachment.filename,
+                        "is_image": attachment.content_type.startswith("image/"),
+                        "size": attachment.size,
+                        "url": attachment.url,
+                        "content_type": attachment.content_type,
+                        "width": attachment.width,
+                        "height": attachment.height,
+                    }
+                )
+
+        return attachments
+
     async def append_log(
         self,
         message: Message,
@@ -668,18 +720,7 @@ async def append_log(
             },
             "content": message.content,
             "type": type_,
-            "attachments": [
-                {
-                    "id": a.id,
-                    "filename": a.filename,
-                    # In previous versions this was true for both videos and images
-                    "is_image": a.content_type.startswith("image/"),
-                    "size": a.size,
-                    "url": a.url,
-                    "content_type": a.content_type,
-                }
-                for a in message.attachments
-            ],
+            "attachments": await self._handle_attachments(message),
         }
 
         return await self.logs.find_one_and_update(
diff --git a/core/config.py b/core/config.py
index b8bb35d40c2..60ab4e2fd1b 100644
--- a/core/config.py
+++ b/core/config.py
@@ -179,6 +179,7 @@ class ConfigManager:
         "log_level": "INFO",
         # data collection
         "data_collection": True,
+        "use_in_database_image_store": True,
     }
 
     colors = {"mod_color", "recipient_color", "main_color", "error_color"}
diff --git a/core/config_help.json b/core/config_help.json
index 80ebf1a48a3..f8ba05164bb 100644
--- a/core/config_help.json
+++ b/core/config_help.json
@@ -1170,5 +1170,14 @@
             "If this configuration is enabled, only roles that are hoisted (displayed seperately in member list) will be used. If a user has no hoisted roles, it will return 'None'.",
             "If you would like to display the top role of a user regardless of if it's hoisted or not, disable `use_hoisted_top_role`."
         ]
+    },
+    "use_in_database_image_store": {
+        "default": "Yes",
+        "description": "Controls if images should be stored in the database as base64 strings.",
+        "examples": [],
+        "notes": [
+            "If this configuration is enabled, images will be stored in the database. If disabled, images will be stored as Discord CDN links.",
+            "This configuration can only be set through `.env` file or environment (config) variables."
+        ]
     }
 }
\ No newline at end of file