Managing media files

The media library holds the files of your site — images, documents, videos — in folders, independently of the pages that use them. A file is uploaded once and can then be placed on as many pages as you like. This guide covers the tasks you do in the library itself; for putting an image on a page see Adding an image to a page.

Note

The media library is provided by the django-filer package, which is part of installations such as the django CMS quickstart project. If your site manages files differently, ask your developers.

Open the media library

  1. Open the project menu in the toolbar and select “Administration…”.

  2. In the Filer section, click “Folders”.

The filer section of the admin sidebar contains the media library

You see the folders of your library. The greyed-out “Unsorted uploads” folder collects every file that was uploaded directly from a plugin dialog and never assigned to a folder.

Create folders

Folders work like the ones on your computer, and they are the only thing standing between you and a library of several hundred unsorted files.

  1. Click “New Folder” at the top right of the folder list.

  2. Give the folder a name and save.

To create a folder inside another one, open the parent folder first and then click “New Folder” there.

Tip

Organise folders the way your team looks for files — by section of the site, by campaign or by year — rather than by file type. “Press photos 2025” is easier to search than “JPEG images”.

Upload files

  1. Open the folder the files should go into.

  2. Drag the files from your computer onto the browser window, or click the upload button at the top right and select them. Several files at a time are fine.

The files appear in the folder as soon as the upload finishes.

Describe a file

Click a file’s name to open its details. The fields worth filling in are:

  • Name — what you and your colleagues will search for.

  • Alt text — a short description of what an image shows. Screen readers read it aloud and browsers display it when the image cannot be loaded, which makes it the single most valuable field for the accessibility of your site. It is used as the default whenever the image is placed on a page.

  • Caption — text that some plugins display alongside the image.

Save when you are done.

Find, move and rename files

  • Find a file with the search field above the file list.

  • Move files by selecting them with the checkboxes on the left and choosing the move action from the menu above the list; then pick the destination folder. You can also drag a file onto a folder.

  • Rename a file by opening its details and changing its name. The file keeps working on every page that uses it — pages refer to the file itself, not to its name.

Replacing a file is the fastest way to update an image that appears in many places: the pages showing it keep their reference, so they all display the new version at once. If your installation offers no replace action, upload the new file and edit the plugins that should use it.

Delete files safely

Warning

Deleting a file removes it from every page that uses it. An image deleted here disappears from the articles and pages it was placed on, and those pages will not warn you.

Before deleting a file or a folder, check whether its contents are still in use. If you are unsure, move the file to an “Archive” folder instead of deleting it: nothing breaks, and it is out of the way.