Managing Assets in AEM DAM

What is the AEM DAM?

The Digital Asset Manager (DAM) is AEM's central repository for images, videos, PDFs, and other media files. All assets used on AEM pages should be stored here so they benefit from version control, metadata, and rendition management.

Uploading Assets

1. Navigate to Assets > Files in the AEM navigation.
2. Open the target folder (or create a new one).
3. Click Create > Files and select files from your computer, or simply drag and drop files onto the folder view.
4. AEM will process the upload and generate renditions automatically.

Organising with Folders

Keep assets organised using a consistent folder hierarchy. A common structure is:

/content/dam/
  your-brand/
    images/
    videos/
    documents/

[!NOTE] Avoid spaces in folder and file names. Use hyphens instead (e.g. product-hero.jpg).

Asset Metadata

Each asset has a Properties panel where you can add metadata such as title, description, tags, and copyright information. Good metadata makes assets easier to find and reuse.

Using Assets on Pages

When editing a page component that accepts an image or file, click the asset picker icon in the edit dialog. This opens a browse panel where you can search and select assets directly from the DAM.

Renditions

AEM automatically generates multiple renditions (resized versions) of uploaded images. These are used by components to serve appropriately sized images for different screen sizes, improving page performance.

Expiry and Rights Management

You can set an expiry date on assets to receive a notification when their licence is due to expire. Expired assets display a warning badge in the DAM so you know to refresh or remove them.