Metadata and tags help describe, categorize, and organize assets in Frontify libraries. Metadata includes technical information extracted from files and custom properties defined by your organization, while tags provide flexible, descriptive keywords.

Library owners and editors can manage metadata and tags in the library backend. This supports consistent asset organization and helps users find relevant assets more easily through search and filters in consumer-facing library pages.

Metadata and tags both help users find assets, but they serve different purposes. Metadata provides structure and consistency, while tags offer flexibility and detail.

For larger or growing libraries, combining metadata and tags helps maintain a consistent structure while making assets easier to discover.

For smaller libraries with simpler organizational needs, tags alone may be sufficient.

To learn how to configure filters for consumer-facing library pages, see Faceted search.

When you open an asset or select multiple assets in the library backend, the asset details panel appears on the right side of the screen. It organizes asset information and settings into expandable sections:

Use the search bar at the top of the panel to find specific properties.

The asset details panel shows expandable sections for managing asset information and settings.

How your changes are saved depends on whether you’re editing an individual asset or multiple assets.

Review and apply pending changes when editing multiple assets or folders.

The Metadata section contains information recorded when an asset is uploaded, alongside properties you can edit.

Standard metadata includes:

You can also update the asset name and display color space directly from the asset card, without opening the asset details panel.

Technical properties such as file size and creation date are read-only. Depending on their permissions, editors can update properties such as the asset name, description, alt text, and display color space.

Custom metadata properties also appear in the Metadata section. Learn how to configure them in Create and manage custom metadata below.

The Legal section contains information about an asset’s creator, copyright, and licensing.

You can update legal properties for individual assets or apply changes to multiple selected assets through bulk editing.

For detailed guidance, see the articles on License management and Copyright provisions.

You can update metadata for all assets in a folder without selecting each asset individually.

Library owners and editors with the appropriate permissions can create and manage custom metadata properties to organize assets according to their organization’s needs.

To create or edit a custom metadata property:

Custom metadata properties appear under Custom metadata in the asset details panel. They can also be used as filters on consumer-facing library pages.

Use the preview pane to see how the property will appear to editors in the asset details panel.

Frontify supports seven custom metadata property types:

You can add help text to guide editors when entering values or configure a default value for new uploads.

You can make custom metadata properties required to ensure that assets contain the necessary information before they’re made available to consumers.

Assets with missing required metadata remain hidden from consumer-facing library pages until the required fields are completed.

In the library backend, missing required values are indicated on affected assets and properties.

Warning indicators appear on asset cards in the library backend when required metadata is missing.

If a property no longer needs to be mandatory, you can turn off Required in its configuration. Assets will no longer be hidden because that property is empty, but this may result in incomplete metadata.

Use the filter bar in the library backend to find assets with missing metadata values:

Assets with missing required metadata are marked with indicators on their asset cards and affected properties, helping editors identify information that needs to be completed.

The asset details panel highlights missing required metadata and identifies mandatory fields.

To complete missing metadata for multiple assets, select the relevant assets and enter the missing values in the asset details panel. Review your changes in the confirmation dialog and select Apply.

You can configure permissions for individual custom metadata properties to control who can view, edit, or manage them.

Permissions can be assigned to library roles, individual users, or user groups. Under Permissions, use the search field to add users or groups and assign their permission levels.

Metadata dependencies let you show or hide custom metadata properties based on the values entered in another property. This helps editors focus on relevant fields and reduces unnecessary information when working with extensive metadata structures.

When creating or editing a custom metadata property, open the Dependencies tab and select a parent property. You can configure one of three conditions:

Dependent properties inherit the permission settings of their parent property.

The Implied property dependencies section shows indirect dependencies between connected properties. For example, continent → country → state. In this hierarchy, the state property indirectly depends on continent because its visibility depends on the country property. Changing or clearing a parent property can also hide properties further down the chain.

Under Advanced, you can configure how a custom metadata property is used in search and displayed on consumer-facing library pages.

You can select both options for the same property.

When you move assets between media libraries using the Move action, their custom metadata values can also be transferred.

For metadata to transfer correctly, the destination library must have matching custom metadata properties and compatible values.

If the properties or available values differ between libraries, Frontify displays a warning about potential conflicts. Review the warning and choose whether to proceed with the move or cancel it.

For detailed instructions, see Bulk curation in libraries.

When you upload assets, Frontify automatically extracts supported embedded metadata, including EXIF, IPTC, and XMP information. This information is mapped to standard asset properties, such as descriptions, file creation dates, legal information, alt text, and tags.

The table below shows how embedded metadata fields map to Frontify properties, where the information appears, and which values take priority when multiple fields contain conflicting information.

For more information on how to view metadata embedded in an image file on your computer, see How to see an image’s EXIF data in Windows and macOS.

Tags are descriptive keywords that help categorize assets by their visual attributes, subjects, or themes (for example: outdoors, product photography, minimalist).

Frontify supports manual tags and AI-suggested tags.

Library owners and editors with the appropriate permissions can add and manage tags for individual assets, multiple assets, or entire folders.
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To add or edit tags:

When you select multiple assets, the Tags section shows which tags they share:

You can also add new tags to the selected assets.

Review your changes in the confirmation dialog, then select Apply to save them or Reset to discard them.

Shared tags appear in black, while tags assigned to only some selected assets appear in gray with a count and an option to add them to the remaining assets.

Frontify can automatically analyze uploaded images and videos and suggest relevant tags, reducing the need to enter descriptive keywords manually.

You can enable AI-assigned tags when creating a media library or in an existing library.

For an existing library:

When Suggested tags is enabled, Frontify automatically assigns AI-generated tags to supported assets.

To view and manage these tags:

AI-assigned tags are displayed in alphabetical order.

AI-suggested tags appear under Tags in the asset details panel. Select a tag to remove or copy it.

For more details on how Frontify uses AI to analyze assets and generate tags, see AI and automatic asset processing.

Metadata and tags help users find relevant assets through search and filtering in Frontify libraries.

Use the search bar to find assets by matching information such as asset names, descriptions, tags, and searchable custom metadata values. Search results are ranked by relevance.

For more information about search functionality, see Search in libraries.
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On consumer-facing library pages in guidelines, editors can configure filters that help users narrow down assets by tags or custom metadata properties, such as department, campaign, or product line.

Users can combine filters to find assets that match specific criteria.

For instructions on configuring these filters, see Faceted search.