Discontinued assets that you no longer wish to show in the Asset library should be removed (hidden). Do not delete them, however, as you may want to reuse them again in future. Instead, simply unpublish or archive the asset.

Deleting assets permanently removes them from the system. Therefore, follow best practice asset management protocol and simply unpublish or archive them — so they can later be retrieved, if required.

Aside from deleting, there are multiple ways to remove (hide) an asset from the Asset library:

1. Unpublishing the Asset Version,
2. Archiving the Asset (recommended), or
3. Unassigning all Member Group permissions.

Choose the method that best suits your purposes.
 

Unpublishing an Asset Version hides it from view in the Asset library^^ and on any other page across the site where it appears.

^^ Note that there is an exception to this rule. Privileged member groups (usually Editors & Admins) can be given access to these unpublished assets without logging into the backoffice. See “Frontend display settings” below for more detail.

When to use this method?
When assets are first created, they are unpublished. It’s best to keep them unpublished until they are ready for release. Also, if you want to temporarily hide an asset, simply unpublish it, as all other asset properties, member attributes and asset details are kept intact.

To unpublish the asset:

1. In the Media section, select the asset’s Asset Version node.
   
   
   
   
2. Select the ‘Properties’ tab and click the Published toggle on.
    
   
3. Save your changes.

Note: All Asset Versions within an Asset must be unpublished for the asset (document) to remain hidden from view in the frontend.
 

Archiving an Asset hides it from view in the Asset library^^ and on any other page across the site where it appears.

^^ Note that there is an exception to this rule. Privileged member groups (usually Editors & Admins) can be given access to these archived assets without logging into the backend. See “Frontend display settings” below for more detail.

When to use this method?
If a previously published asset becomes discontinued and is no longer needed, simply archive it. Archiving tells users that the asset was once available but is now no longer current or in use. It should not be deleted however, as you never know when you might need it again! Remember, some Government agencies require you to keep a copy of all asset versions for a period of seven years.

Also, it’s faster to toggle the archive checkbox on/off to hide an asset, than to unpublish all asset versions. Additionally, the asset version number might not give a true indication of which asset was last in use (e.g. asset V6 could have been in use after V7 because V7 was only a temporary release — if you use the unpublish method to hide assets, it may not be clear to the next user that V6 is the latest asset).  

To archive an asset:

1. Select the asset in the Media section.
2. Select the ‘Properties’ tab and click the Archive toggle on.
    
   
3. Save your changes.

Note: It is not necessary to unpublish an asset if you simply want to archive it. Although unpublishing an asset hides it from public view, unpublishing overrides the “Archive” state, so references to the asset will be flagged as “Unpublished” rather than “Archived”.

If you want to discuss the best method appropriate to your asset management needs, please contact our Professional Services team.
 

Publishing/Unpublishing and Archiving/Unarchiving in bulk

There are several ways to publish, unpublish, archive or unarchive multiple assets in batch:

• By selecting multiple assets within an asset folder and “Batch Modifying” them via the “Edit” tool, or
• Via the “Publish all”, “Unpublish all”, “Archive all” or “Unarchive all” action in the context menu.

Tool: Batch Modify
Use this method when you want to make other edits (in batch), as well as publishing, unpublishing, archiving or unarchiving in batch. View the “Batch modifying assets” page for more info.

Note that with this method, you can only batch a selection of assets within one asset folder only.

Action: Publish/Unpublish/Archive/Unarchive all
Use this method when all you want is to “Publish all”, “Unpublish all”, “Archive all” or “Unarchive all” the assets within the selected folders. Note that this method runs the event on the contents of the selected folder as well as any nested subfolders it contains.^. Note that no other actions are available via this method. If you also want to edit keywords, metadata or any other properties (as well as publish/archive in the same action), then use the “Batch modifying assets” method.

^ Depending on how many items are contained within, this could take some time, so always check folder contents to ensure thousands of media items aren’t being saved at once. Note also that when:

• publishing all, any items already published will be ignored and will not be republished.
• unpublishing all, any items already unpublished will be ignored.
• archiving all, any items already archived will be ignored.
• unarchiving all, any items already unarchived will be ignored.

To run the “Publish all / Archive all” events, right-click (Ctrl-click) an asset folder, and select the event:

 
Administrator notes
Note that not all Administrators/Editors are able to publish, unpublish, archive or unarchive all in batch. This setting must first be switched on for your User Group (admin group) before you can see the actions in the context menu.

To activate the actions, they must first be toggled on in the “Users” section:

Users [section] > Groups > [select user group]:

 
Default permissions [panel] > Other: “Archive/Unarchive All” and/or “Publish/Unpublish All”:

 

Removing all member access privileges to the asset also hides the asset from view in the frontend.

The one issue with this procedure is that, if you wish to re-enable the asset in future, you need to remember which Member Groups initially had access to the asset.

To unassign Member Group permissions to the asset:

1. Select the asset in the Media section and select the ‘Properties’ tab.
2. In the Member Group permissions area, remove all member groups that you no longer wish to have access to the asset.
   
   
3. Click Save and your asset will no longer appear in the Asset library.
   
   
   

Deleting an Asset

To delete an asset, right-click the Asset within the Media > Asset library > Assets Folder to open the actions menu. Select Delete then confirm deletion. Note that this will delete the asset and all versions of the asset.

Note: We recommend you Unpublish or Archive the asset rather than delete it, as it can be re-published again at a later date. Deleting an asset will move it to the Recycle Bin and it will be permanently deleted when the Recycle Bin is emptied.

Note that items in the Recycle Bin are automatically deleted after 30 days.
 

Deleting assets in batch

To delete assets in batch, select the Assets Folder in the Media > Asset library tree, then either select all assets by clicking the checkbox or individually highlighting the assets you want to delete.

Finally, click the Delete button and confirm deletion.

 

Deleting an Asset Version

To delete an Asset Version, select the parent Asset in the Media > Asset library tree, then either select all asset versions by clicking the checkbox or individually highlighting the asset versions you want to delete.

Finally, click the Delete button and confirm deletion.

Note: We recommend you Unpublish or Archive the asset rather than delete the asset versions, as it can be re-published again at a later date. Deleting an asset version will move it to the Recycle Bin and it will be permanently deleted when the Recycle Bin is emptied.

Note that items in the Recycle Bin are automatically deleted after 30 days.

Generally, unpublished and/or archived assets do not appear in the frontend. However, privileged member groups (Editors & Admins) can be given access to these unpublished/archived assets without logging into the backend.

When given access, these member groups will see an additional asset status drop-down list on the frontend.

 
The list allows assets to be filtered by Published, Unpublished or Archived assets. A ‘status’ flag will also be shown to identify asset status. E.g.

Please note that you should not give all member groups access to these assets, as they are still downloadable.
 

Enable access to “Unpublished” and “Archived” assets

To enable Unpublished and Archived asset access (assuming you have permission):

1. Click the individual member group in the “Content > Settings > Member Groups” section.
   
   
    
2. Select the “Settings” tab and toggle on “Can View Unpublished/Archived Assets”.
   
   
    
3. Click Save and publish to enable the changes. 

Members from that member group will now be able to view unpublished and archived assets in the frontend via the drop-down list.