[AEM Assets]{class="badge positive" title="Applies to AEM Assets)."}

Manage assets manage-assets

The Assets view interface supports the full range of digital asset management (DAM) operations through a single, user-friendly workspace. After adding assets, you can search, download, move, copy, rename, delete, update, and edit them directly from Assets view.

Use Assets view to accomplish the following asset management tasks. When you select an asset, the toolbar at the top displays the applicable options for that asset.

Figure: Options available in the toolbar for a selected image.

You can view the same options on the asset thumbnails.

Assets view displays only the relevant options in the toolbar, and those options depend on the type of the selected asset.

Figure: Options available in the toolbar for a selected folder.

Figure: Options available in the toolbar for a selected PDF file.

Download and distribute assets download

You can download one or more assets, folders, or a combination of both from Assets view directly to your local file system. Selecting a mix of individual assets and entire folders in a single operation streamlines bulk retrieval, so you can obtain everything you need without repeating the download for each item.

Once assets are downloaded to your local file system, you can:

Because downloading preserves the original files on your local file system while keeping the source assets intact in Assets view, you can iterate on content offline and reintroduce revised versions without losing the master copy.

Asset versioning versions-of-assets

Asset versioning in Assets view automatically preserves earlier states of an asset whenever that asset is re-uploaded, updated, or edited. You can view the version history, review past versions, and restore any past version as the latest version. Restoring a past version reverts the asset to that earlier state, so no previous work is lost and you can recover an approved or original file at any time.

Assets view creates a new version in the following scenarios:

View and compare versions of an asset view-and-compare-versions

Versioning tracks the modifications to an asset over time and lets users revert to a previous version when needed. To create versions, upload a duplicate copy or a modified copy of an asset. This ensures that earlier iterations are never permanently lost, so users can always restore a prior state of the asset if a later change is unwanted.

To view and compare versions:

To add a new version, select the latest version and click New Version to upload a new copy of the asset from your local file system. This creates a new asset version while preserving all previous versions in the version history.

Manage asset status manage-asset-status

Permissions required: Can Edit, Owner, or administrator permissions on an asset.

The Assets view enables users to set a status on any asset available in the repository. Setting an asset status governs and controls the downstream consumption of digital assets, ensuring that only reviewed and approved content is distributed or reused. This provides a clear approval workflow that improves content quality and reduces the risk of publishing unapproved material.

Users with the required permissions can set the following statuses on assets:

Set asset status set-asset-status

To set the status of an asset in Adobe Experience Manager Assets:

Set approval target set-approval-target

The Approval Target field on the Asset Details page controls where approved assets are published. Using the Assets view, you publish approved assets to Dynamic Media with OpenAPI (DM with OpenAPI) capabilities, Content Hub, or both, depending on the value you set in this field. This single field determines the publish destination for every asset you approve.

To set the approval target:

Some additional points to note include:

Default Approval Target and publish destinations for approved assets default-approval-target-options-publish-destinations

The following table illustrates the prerequisites for display of the Approval Target dropdown list, and the default approval target based on whether Dynamic Media with OpenAPI and Content Hub are enabled on your AEM as a Cloud Service environment. The dropdown list appears whenever at least one of the two destinations is enabled:

Set asset expiration date set-asset-expiration-date

Assets view lets you assign an expiration date to any asset in the repository, giving you a built-in way to manage the lifecycle of digital assets and flag content that should no longer be used after a certain point. Once an expiration date is set, you can filter the search results based on an Expired asset status. You can also specify an expiration date range to narrow your search results further, making it easier to locate assets that expire within a defined window or that have already lapsed.

Steps to set an asset expiration date

How the Expired indicator behaves

The Expired asset card indicator overrides the Approved or Rejected indicator set for an asset. As a result, once an asset passes its expiration date, its card displays the Expired status regardless of whether it was previously marked Approved or Rejected. This ensures that expired content is clearly identified at a glance, so it is not mistakenly reused after its intended lifespan.

You can also filter assets based on an asset status. For more information, see Search assets in Assets view.

Customize metadata forms to include asset status field customize-asset-status-metadata-form

Permissions required: Administrator

Customizing metadata forms requires Administrator permissions and lets organizations extend the Assets view with business-specific metadata fields. By default, Assets view provides many standard metadata fields, but most organizations have additional metadata needs that these defaults do not cover.

A metadata form is the configurable structure that defines which fields appear on an asset’s Details page. Metadata forms let businesses add custom metadata fields to that page, and each field is bound to the underlying asset property through a mapping property, which specifies where the field’s value is stored. Adding business-specific metadata directly improves the governance and discovery of the organization’s assets, because richer, standardized metadata makes assets easier to search, classify, filter, and manage across their lifecycle.

For more information on how to add additional metadata fields to the metadata form, see Metadata Forms.

Add Asset Status metadata field to the form

To add the Asset Status metadata field to the form:

The Asset Status field enables the organization to track and surface the current state of each asset, supporting governance and lifecycle workflows.

Add Expiration Date metadata field to the form

To add the Expiration Date metadata field to the form:

The Expiration Date field lets the organization capture when an asset is no longer valid for use, which supports compliance, retention, and automated lifecycle management of assets.

Next Steps next-steps

Continue building your expertise in the Assets view by exploring these recommended actions, feedback channels, and related documentation:

See also — related documentation covering translation, APIs, metadata, search, publishing, and other core Assets view workflows: