What is the media library - and what can I do with it?

Your site's photos and files aren't just a folder of uploads - each one has a record card: what it shows, whose it is, whether it's cleared to publish, and where it's used. The library is those cards, kept by your assistant, so that "the photo of the blue vase from the studio shoot" is something it can actually find, check and reuse - not a filename only you remember.

What you can do with it

Find things by what they are. Search "market stall" or "the tall ceramic piece" and get the photo, whatever your phone named it. Titles and tags make that work, and your assistant helps write them - or fills the blanks itself in capped batches (My photos are a mess - help me organise them).

Gather photos into sets. A press pack, a winter launch, the studio shots - named groups you can ask for wholesale when building a page (I want my photos grouped - press shots here, the winter launch there).

Mark what's really you. The brand kit is the shortlist that IS your brand - the actual logo, the photos you'd want reached for first (My photos are a mess - help me organise them).

Keep rights honest. The card records whose photo it is and what you may do with it - and the photo often helps: embedded credits, Content Credentials and AI-generated marks are read as evidence (Am I allowed to use this photo?). Photos without a signed-off record are held back from publishing, which is a feature, not a fault (Why won't it let me publish - something about a photo? and How do I sign off a photo before it's used?).

Know where everything is used. Before deleting or swapping a photo, ask where it appears - every placement is on the card (Where's that photo of ours - the one from the summer market?).

See what each site is actually carrying. The Your files tab lists the files you've sent your assistant in chat, which wait a week and then clear themselves, alongside the documents, video and audio that live with the site for good - and lets you clear the chat ones out in one go (Where do the files I send Bernard go - and how do I clear them out?).

Adopt what's already there. A site that moved in with photos aboard can have every one of them brought into the library in one pass, each starting rights-unknown until you say otherwise - honest by default.

Check a video or audio file actually plays. A black screen, a silent track, or a video that works on your computer but not your phone is usually a fixable fault in the file itself, not a broken upload (Why won't my video play?).

Where it earns its keep

The library is why "use one of the studio shots on the new page" works as a sentence. Your assistant checks the set, picks a signed-off photo, places it, and the change waits in your draft for approval - the librarianship happened long before, a card at a time.