When working with any Library in Frontify, you need to start with the concept of the Library setup; the Libraries are where you upload assets, and the Library pages are where others can view them.
Libraries
The Libraries are the ones you create within your Brand. That is where you can upload the assets in your Frontify DAM without exposing them to other users just yet.
Here, you can upload both assets and folders, organize them within the Library, and add metadata and tags.
You can invite other collaborators through the people "Invite" icon in the top bar on the right-hand side.
Note that only invited users will have access to this part of the Media Library, and only Editors and Owners can contribute or upload assets and folders.
If you only need to share a specific part of your library, you can also invite users directly to individual folders — without exposing everything else. See Folder-level access in Frontify for more.
Library description
While it is beneficial to ensure that your metadata is complete, we also recommend adding a description for your library. That will help you find the correct library or project while navigating or searching for them.
To fill in the description, simply click on the cogwheel on the top right-hand corner of the library in the Libraries tab.
Folders vs. Collections
Here, you can also create Folders. Folders are the best way to organize assets in the backend.
You can share individual folders with specific users or groups, giving them access without exposing the rest of your library. Learn more about folder-level access here.
Folder-level metadata editing
You can also update metadata across an entire folder at once:
Select the folder by checking the box on the folder card.
The editing sidebar opens with the same metadata and tag fields available for asset editing.
Enter your changes. These are staged and will not commit until applied.
Use the include sub-folders toggle if you want your changes to apply to assets nested inside sub-folders as well.
Click apply to run the update across all assets inside the folder.
Note: Folders are not displayed on the library pages.
Here is how you create Folders:
To present related groups of assets in the library pages, you can create Collections.
Collections are built by Editors and Owners and will be visible in the “consumer view” library pages if you enable it with the "Show in Media Library" toggle.
Here is how you can create Collections:
Adding assets to a collection
You can add assets to collections directly from the editing sidebar:
Select one or more assets in the library using the checkbox in the top-left corner of each card. There is no limit on selection size.
In the bulk action bar at the bottom, select edit to open the editing sidebar.
Open the collections section in the sidebar.
Search for an existing collection to add your selection to, remove them from a collection, or create a new collection on the spot without leaving the page.
When selecting multiple assets, the sidebar indicates which collections all selected assets belong to, and which collections only some of them belong to.
Attachments
You can add attachments to assets in the Media- and Document Libraries. This way, you have another option to upload assets in different formats. Plus, you can now provide icon and logo bundles for download.
Open the editing sidebar from the asset overview or open the asset detail view, then expand the relations section in the sidebar to add attachments.
Cross Library Asset Movement
You can move assets from specific libraries to others of the same type. The libraries with this feature are currently: Icon, Logo, and Media Libraries.
Most of the times, you can move the assets within the same kind of libraries, e.g., from icon to icon library or from logo to logo library. Icon and Media Libraries are distinct types and cannot be merged. For specific needs, such as combining icons and PDFs in a Media Library, download SVG icons from the Icon Library and re-upload them to the Media Library alongside your PDFs.
There is, however, a possibility to move assets from logo library to media library. When asset is moved from a logo library to a media library, the extra formats of the logo are changed into asset's attachments in the media library. The reverse is not allowed because it's not possible turn attachments into extra formats of the asset.
Select one or more assets you wish to move. From the bulk action bar at the bottom of the screen, select Move to transfer the chosen assets to the corresponding library or project. You can select and move as many assets as needed without selection caps.
To consolidate multiple Media Libraries into one, create a new Media Library to serve as the main library. Use bulk actions → move in each source library to transfer assets to the new library. Organize assets in the new library using folders for backend categorization and collections for curated frontend views.
Ensure the metadata configuration of the destination library matches the source libraries to preserve metadata. Frontify does not support direct merging of libraries. However, you can manually combine assets by downloading all assets from one library as a zip file and re-uploading them to the target library.
Note: Metadata may not be preserved during this manual transfer.
Moving assets between libraries requires Editor or Owner access at the library level. Users who have been invited to a folder only — through folder-level access — are not able to move assets between libraries.
Frontify does not allow linking two different libraries or adding links to folders from one library into another. Each library operates independently, and frontend and backend libraries are managed separately.
Library Pages
The pages of a Library are the "consumer view," where all your users (who have access to your Guidelines) can view and download the images.
Note: You can’t upload assets or folders from the library pages.
The library pages are part of your Guidelines – it's one of the elements in the top navigation. You can create the library pages by choosing the "Media Library" option when adding a new Document in the top navigation.
Here, you can define the search and filter settings to help users find the assets they need. You can also specify how Collections and assets are presented in the library pages with Layout Settings.
Switching between Frontend & Backend
When working in the backend, you can reach the library pages by clicking the Guideline icon in the Power Bar.
You can reach the backend by clicking the Projects icon in the Power Bar and switching to the Libraries tab when working on the library pages.
Note: The backend of the Library will only be available upon invite. The frontend and backend are separate invitation systems; inviting to the one does not grant access to the other. Users invited to specific folders through Folder-level access have limited backend access — they can see and work within their shared folders, but cannot access the rest of the library backend.
In case you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact our support team.




