Importing Assets
The global import tool: scanning the site for existing images, status badges, import-by-URL, and what happens to files during import.
The import screen
Go to Setup → Media Hub → Import to access the global import tool. This is for getting existing images into MediaHub from elsewhere on the site or from a URL. It has two tabs.
Scan and import
Back up before bulk imports. The scan itself is read-only and safe to run at any time. Importing creates new asset pages and copies files, which is not easily reversed at scale. Take a database backup before importing large batches, and consider importing by template or field rather than everything at once. The scan has been tested with 25,000 images and works on shared hosting.
Click Scan For Existing Images to crawl every image field on every page across the site. The scan runs field-by-field with a progress bar and can be paused.
When complete, a paginated results table shows every image found with columns for filename, source page, date, dimensions, file size, source field, and a status badge. Results are paginated at 100 images per page.
Filters
Use the filters to narrow down the results:
- Search - filter by filename, page title, or slug
- Status - show all, new only, or already in Hub
- Field - filter to a specific image field (shows image count per field)
- Template - filter to pages using a specific template (shows image count per template)
The field and template dropdowns show image counts so you can gauge the scope of an import before starting. This is useful if you want to import in stages rather than all at once.
Status badges
Status badges indicate how each image compares to assets already in the Hub:
- Already in Hub - filename stem matches an existing Hub asset
- New - no match found; will be imported as a new asset
- Potential duplicate - filename stem matches more than one Hub asset
Running the import
Tick the images you want to bring into MediaHub, then click Import Selected. A confirmation dialog shows the number of images and an estimated time before the import begins. Images are imported in batches with a progress bar.
Previous scan results are cached for one hour. If you re-open the Import page within that window, a banner lets you reload the last results without re-running the full scan.
What happens during import
Each imported image is copied into the Hub as a new asset page with its own directory under site/assets/files/. During import:
- The original image's description becomes the asset's alt text
- Any PW image tags are converted to Hub tags
- The source page and field are recorded in the asset's About field as an audit trail
Original images are not removed. After import, you will have two copies of each image on disk: the original on its source page and the new asset in the MediaHub library. Once you have verified that your MediaHub fields are working correctly, you can remove the old image fields from your templates and clean up the legacy files. See the Migration Guide for a step-by-step approach.
Import by URL
Enter a public URL (e.g. https://example.com/image.jpg) or a local server path (e.g. /site/assets/files/1234/photo.jpg) and click Import. The image is fetched and added to the MediaHub library as a new asset. Recent URL imports for the current session are listed below the input for reference.
Per-field import
MediaHub also has a per-field import button that scans other image fields on the same page, with intelligent deduplication and perceptual hash matching. This is a separate feature covered on the Import Page Images page.