Search assets in Assets Essentials

Last update: August 23, 2024

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Assets Essentials provides an effective search, that just works by default. The search is comprehensive as it is a full-text search. The powerful search functionality lets you quickly discover the appropriate asset and help you improve your content velocity. Assets Essentials provides full-text search and even searches through the metadata such as smart tags, title, date created, and copyright.

To search assets,

  • Click in the search box at the top of the page. By default, it searches within the folder that you are currently browsing. Do one of the following:

    search box

    • Search using a keyword and optionally change the folder. Press Return.

    • Start working with a recently viewed asset, by searching for it directly. Click in the search box and select a recently viewed asset from the suggestions.

Filter the search results

You can filter the search results based on the following parameters.

Search filters

  • Asset Status: Filter the search results using an Approved, Rejected, or No Status asset status.

  • File type: Filter the search results by the supported types of files that is, Images, Documents, and Videos.

  • MIME type: Filter for one or more of the supported file formats.

  • Image size: Provide one of more of the minimum and maximum dimensions to filter images. Size is provided in dimensions in pixel and is not the file size of the images.

  • Created date: The creation date of the asset as provided in the metadata. The standard date format used is yyyy-mm-dd.

  • Modified date: The last modified date of the assets. The standard date format used is yyyy-mm-dd.

  • Expiration Date: Filter the search results based on an Expired asset status. In addition, you can specify an expiration date range for assets to further filter your search results.

  • Custom Filters: Add custom filters to the Assets Essentials user interface. Apply the custom filters in addition to the standard filters to refine your search results.

You can sort the searched assets in increasing or decreasing order of Name, Relevance, Size, Modified, and Created. The searched assets are sorted based on Relevance, by default.

Manage custom filters

Permissions required: Can Edit, Owner, or Administrator.

Assets Essentials also enable you to add custom filters to the user interface. You can then apply those custom filters in addition to the standard filters to refine your search results.

Assets Essentials provides the following custom filters:

Custom filter nameDescription
TitleFilter assets using the asset title. The title that you specify in the case-sensitive search criteria must match the exact title of the asset to display in the results.
NameFilter assets using the asset file name. The name that you specify in the case-sensitive search criteria must match the exact file name of the asset to display in the results.
Asset SizeFilter assets by defining a size range, in bytes, in the search criteria for an asset to display in the results.
Predicted TagsFilter assets using the asset smart tag. The smart tag name that you specify in the case-sensitive search criteria must match the exact smart tag name of the asset to display in the results. You cannot specify multiple smart tags in search criteria.

Add custom filters

To add custom filters:

  1. Click Filters.

  2. In the Custom Filters section, click Edit or Add Filters.

    Add custom filters

  3. On the Custom filters management dialog box, select the filters that you need to add to the existing list of filters. Select Custom Filters to select all filters.

  4. Click Confirm to add the filters to the user interface.

Remove custom filters

To remove custom filters:

  1. Click Filters.

  2. In the Custom Filters section, click Edit.

  3. On the Custom filters management dialog box, deselect the filters that you need to remove from the existing list of filters.

  4. Click Confirm to remove the filters from the user interface.

Search assets using Adobe Firefly

You can search for an asset that is not available in any of the asset folders by utilizing the Adobe Firefly asset search feature within Experience Manager Assets. This allows you to efficiently generate assets in real-time that are not stored in the asset folders.

Before you begin

You must have an active Adobe Express subscription.

Generate assets

To generate new assets using Adobe Firefly:

  1. Navigate to the AEM Assets workspace.

  2. Type the asset name in the search bar. For example, you can search an asset using the keyword Bugatti Type 57. When searching for the asset, no results are found because the asset is not present in any of the asset folders. To generate assets using AI, click Generate with Firefly. The Adobe Firefly screen appears.

    Firefly integration

    The new assets are successfully generated. Additionally, you can change the image description by typing the new text prompt in the description box. Learn how to write a good AI prompt to generate extraordinary and relevant content. Alternatively, you can edit image with various other features like changing style, image dimensions, and more.

    Firefly integration

  3. Select an image that you want to save. Click Save to save the assets in your preferred folder for easy access.

  4. Save asset form appears. Specify the following fields:

    • Enter a name for the file in the Save As field.
    • Select a destination folder.
    • Enter details such as Project or Campaign name, Keywords, Channels, Time frame, and Region.

    Firefly integration

  5. Click Save as new asset to save the asset(s).

Upload assets

To upload the generated asset to the assets repository:

  1. Click Upload.
  2. Select the asset folder to which you need to upload the asset and click Select Folder.
    Upload asset

Search functionality is quite easy to use in Assets Essentials. From within the search box, you cannot only type a keyword and press return to see the results, you can also quickly search again for your recently searched keywords in a single click.

You can also filter the search results based on specific criteria around metadata and type of assets. For frequently used filters, to improve the search experience, Assets Essentials lets you save the search parameters. You can then select the saved search to search and apply the filter with just a single click as well.

To create a saved search, search for some asset, apply one or more filters, and click Save as > Saved Search in the Filters panel. You can also click Save as and select Smart Collection to save the results as a Smart Collection. See Create a Smart Collection for more details.

Create smart collection

Work with Search results

You can select the assets that display in the search results and do the following actions:

  • Find Similar Image: Find a similar image asset in the Assets UI based on the metadata and smart tags.

  • Details: View and edit asset properties.

  • Download: Download an asset.

  • Add to Collection: Add the selected asset to a collection.

  • Pin to Quick Access: Pin an asset for faster access when you need it later. All pinned items display in the Quick access section of My Workspace.

  • Open in Adobe Express: Edit an image in the integrated Adobe Express from the Experience Manager Assets screen.

  • Edit: Edit the image using Adobe Express.

  • Share Link: Share links for an asset with other users so that they can access and download it.

  • Delete: Delete an asset.

  • Copy: Copy an asset to a different folder location.

  • Move: Move an asset to a different folder location.

  • Rename: Rename an asset.

  • Copy to Libraries: Add an asset to the Library.

  • Assign Tasks: Assign tasks to users for an asset.

  • Watch: Monitor the operations performed on an asset.

Configure search first homepage

Assets Essentials enables you to select the default landing page for your organization. When using Search First as the home page, you also have options to tailor the branding of the page by configuring the background and logo images to match your brand.

To configure the search first homepage, execute the steps below:

  1. Navigate to Settings > General Settings.
  2. Select Search first. It further opens the search first related configuration. You can set alignment or set the background and logo image of your homepage.

Assets Essentials allows you to change the alignment of the search bar. You can make the search bar appear either at the center or at the top. Select the appropriate alignment and click Save.

Search first homepage alignment

You can add a brand logo and background image to your search first homepage. Execute the following steps:

  1. Navigate to the Background and Logo image section under Homepage.
  2. Click Replace to browse images from the existing assets repository.
  3. Click Save. Preview the changes to review the modifications.

Preview configured homepage

You can preview to check the layout and formatting of the search first homepage. Using Preview, you can fix the layout or make modifications as per the requirement. To preview the configured homepage, execute the steps below:

  1. Click General Settings and select Search first.

  2. Navigate to Customize search first homepage and click Preview. Toggle through the Dark theme button to preview the homepage in dark or light theme.

  3. Click Close to close the preview screen.

    Search first homepage preview

You can also search assets available in the repository by defining text prompts. Experience Manager Assets automatically transforms those text prompts to search filters and displays the search results. You can view and modify automatic filters using the Filters Pane to further narrow down the search results.

To access Contextual Search in Experience Manager Assets:

  1. Click Search in the left pane.

    Contextual Search

  2. Define the text prompt in the Search text box and click Contextual Search.

    Contextual Search text prompt

    Experience Manager Assets displays the search results.

Supported filters

Contextual Search supports the following filters out-of-the-box. Base your text prompts on these filters to view appropriate search results.

  • Image height

  • Image width

  • File type: image, document, video, or folder.

  • MIME type: JPG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, MP4, PDF, PPTX, DOCX or XLSX

  • Created date

  • Modified date

  • Expiration date

  • Asset status: Approved, Rejected, or all

  • Expired assets

Examples for the text prompts

Example 1

Text Prompt: Images created this month.

Experience Manager Assets applies the following filters automatically and displays the search results:

Contextual Search Example 1

Example 2

Text prompt: Images at least 200px tall and 100px wide with beach and clear sky.

Experience Manager Assets applies the following filters automatically and displays the search results:

Contextual Search Example 2

Example 3

Text prompt: I need images of blue sky that are 1500 and 2500 pixel height and created in the past month that is not expired and approved.

Experience Manager Assets applies the following filters automatically and displays the search results:

Contextual Search Example 3

The following video illustrates the end-to-end process from accessing the Contextual Search User Interface to defining text prompts, and viewing the search results.

video poster

Administrators also have the option to disable Contextual Search for users in your organization. To do so, execute the following steps:

  1. Navigate to Settings > General Settings.

  2. In the Contextual Search section, turn off the Enable Contextual Search for your organization toggle to disable the Contextual Search feature for all users in your organization.

Contextual Search feedback

If you need to provide feedback on the Contextual Search feature, click Contextual Search icon and click the Feedback icon. Select the feedback type, specify the subject and description, and click Submit.

Contextual Search feedback

Next Steps

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