Custom Metadata

Custom metadata allows you to add extra information to your files, folders, and collections in ImageKit DAM.

For example, you can store information like Brand, SKU ID, Product Category, and other relevant information for your use case. Later, you can search assets based on the values of these custom metadata fields.

Before you can set custom metadata on assets (files, folders, and collections), you need to create the fields.

Go to the Media Library settings and click on the "Custom Metadata" tab. Click on the "Add new" button to create a new field.

• Field Label: Enter the label for the field. This will be displayed in the custom metadata form on the asset details page. This is only for display purposes and can be changed later.
• Field Name: Enter the field's name. This is used during the API calls to get and set the custom metadata, and it cannot be changed later.
• Field Type: Select the type of field. It can be Text, Textarea, Number, Date, Boolean, SingleSelect, MultiSelect. Based on the field type, validations are applied at the time of setting the custom metadata. The Field Type cannot be changed later.

You can set additional options based on the field type, such as its default value and whether it's a mandatory field.

You also have to add the options for SingleSelect and MultiSelect fields. For Text fields, you can also set minimum and maximum length. For Number fields, you can set minimum and maximum values. For Date fields, you can set minimum and maximum dates.

For fields of type SingleSelect and MultiSelect, you can manually enter options or import them using a CSV file.

You can add options individually by specifying:

• The data type of the option (String, Number, or Boolean).
• The value of the option.

You can also download the currently defined options in CSV format.

You can upload a CSV file to add multiple select options at once. The CSV should have the following format:

Type,Value
string,option_one
number,42
boolean,true

The uploaded options will completely override any existing list rather than values being added incrementally to the current list.

Additionally, you can export your current options in CSV format. This allows you to keep a backup of your metadata configuration, which can be useful for version control, rollback planning, or restoring options later if unintended changes occur.

You can also download the CSV template to get started with the correct structure.

Assuming you have created the necessary custom metadata fields, you can set custom metadata for files by editing the asset details or at the time of upload.

To set custom metadata for a file, go to the asset details page by double-clicking or right-clicking on the asset and selecting "Details" from the context menu.

On the asset details page, you will see a "Custom metadata" section on the right, where you can set values for the custom metadata fields.

You can set custom metadata for folders during folder creation or by editing the folder details.

To set custom metadata for a folder, go to the folder details page by double-clicking on it or right-clicking on it and selecting "Folder details" from the context menu. This will open a dialog where you can see and update the custom metadata fields.

Like folders, collections can have custom metadata associated with them at the time of creation or editing of the collection details.

ImageKit offers AI tasks to use modern LLMs to automate media management at scale. You can use these AI tasks to set custom metadata fields automatically, using natural-language instructions and predefined vocabularies. This helps eliminate manual effort and errors while automating media management at scale.

For example, you can set the metadata field "gender" for your product images using the answer to a question like “Is there a male or a female model in this image?”.

You can learn more about AI tasks for automatically setting metadata here.

When you import assets from an external source — such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or another DAM — those assets often carry their own original creation date that is different from the date they were uploaded to ImageKit. The original creation date feature lets you preserve and track that date.

Go to Media Library settings, open the Custom Metadata tab, and turn on the Enable original creation date toggle.

This creates a reserved custom metadata field with:

• API name: _internal_original_created_datetime
• UI label: Original creation date
• Type: Date

Pass the original date in the customMetadata object when uploading via the API:

{
  "customMetadata": {
    "_internal_original_created_datetime": "2021-06-15T10:30:00Z"
  }
}

You can also set it later by editing the asset details page in the dashboard.

Once the field has a value, you can filter assets using the standard custom metadata search syntax:

"customMetadata._internal_original_created_datetime" > "2020-01-01"

You can also sort results by original creation date using sort=asc_original_creation_date or sort=desc_original_creation_date in the list assets API.

Assets without a value for this field are sorted using their creation date in ImageKit Media Library.

ImageKit reserves certain custom metadata field names for internal use. Reserved fields are created automatically by the system when you enable specific features.

Currently reserved field names:

• _internal_original_created_datetime — created when you enable original creation date

Restrictions on reserved fields:

• You cannot create a new custom metadata field using a reserved name.
• Reserved fields cannot be deleted via the API or the dashboard.
• Reserved fields are visible in the custom metadata form and are marked with a Reserved badge in the settings.

You can search for assets based on custom metadata fields using advanced search. Select any defined custom metadata field and set the search criteria to filter the assets.