How Do I Delete Media Files?

Best Practice to Delete Media

When file is added to your site it is saved as a media item and then added to your media library.

You can permanently delete files uploading onto your site by deleting the media item from your media library. 

If there is a media item that is no longer needed best practices is to make sure you move it to the trash and it will no longer appear in your media library BUT the media file will still appear within trash can until it is automatically permanently deleted after 30 days or you can manually do that by selecting the purge button. Once it is deleted from the trash that file will be permanently deleted from the site. 

Do:

  • Use the Media Library edit button in the Operations row to update any documents or images media that has been added to the media library.
example of the media tab where you use to upload and update files
  • Make sure that when see the file name in the File field or the image field of the media that you uploaded or are updating before you click save. 
example of image file properly added to media item
  • Use the Delete link next to the Save button to properly and safely remove media and have it moved to the trash. 
an example to use the delete link to move items to the trash

Don't:

  • Click the remove button next to the file name within a media item and click save. This will not move that media to the trash but it only removes the file from the media container. This will then lead to broken links and a broken site.  Always click the Delete link to move media to the trash.
example of file properly added to a media item

How to Safely Delete Files from your site

You can safely delete files that you've uploaded onto your site within the Media tab by selecting the little arrow next to the edit button of the file you want to delete. 

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It's important to make sure you are not deleting media that is being used within a micro-content or other page. You will know if a media item is being used when you click on the delete button and a pop up alert appears that says  there are recorded usages of this entity.

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This means that you will have to select the recorded usage link to see the list of content that the media is on for you to remove from that page before you can safely delete it from the media library. 

What happens if you delete a file that is being used in a place? 

For example a common "Site unavailable error" happens because a file was deleted but it was being used within a link collection list and since the link collection list now had a broken link within it the page that the link collection list is embedded within crashes and causes the "Site unavailable error"

example of error message for incorrectly deleting a file

This same error message can also happen if you revert a content type or micro-content type to a previous version  with the revisions tab. If that previous revision that had been linking to the now deleted file is reverted back to it then you can run the risk of having a broken link or in the case of link collection micro-contents having  links leading to files that have been deleted can cause that page that the link collection is embedded in to run into this site unavailable error.

A good rule of thumb is to make sure to check your links within the revisions before you revert back to the old version.

Use the Media Library ONLY for Media Management

Author Role

Direct Link to a direct image or document

Add item using Media Library 

Link to any Media Library Item (Linkit link)

Unpublish THEIR OWN Media Library Item

Unpublish ANY Media Library Item

Delete THEIR OWN Media Library item (goes to Trash)

Delete ANY Media Library Item (goes to Trash)

CAUTION

Delete THEIR OWN file entirely off the hosting

CAUTION

Delete ANY file entirely off the hosting

Anonymous

LEGACY

❌NO

✅YES

❌NO

❌NO

❌NO

❌NO

❌NO

❌NO

Writer

NOT DESIRED

✅YES

✅YES

✅YES

❌NO

❌NO

❌NO

✅YES

❌NO

Editor

NOT DESIRED

✅YES

✅YES

✅YES

✅YES

❌NO

❌NO

✅YES

❌NO

Publisher

NOT DESIRED

✅YES

✅YES

✅YES

✅YES

✅YES

✅YES

✅YES

❌NO

Agency Manager

NOT DESIRED

✅YES

✅YES

✅YES

✅YES

✅YES

✅YES

✅YES

✅YES

1

How to Permanently Delete a File

You can safely delete files that you've uploaded onto your site within the Media library tab by selecting the little arrow next to the edit button within the media library. 

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It's important to make sure you are not deleting media that is being used within a micro-content or other page. You will know if a media item is being used when you click on the delete button and a pop up alert appears that says there are recorded usages of this entity.

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This means that you will have to click the recorded usage link to see the list of content that the media is on published on. 

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Once you remove the media from that the listed content it will now be safe for you to delete it from the media library.

It will sit within the Trash under the "Media" tab for 30 days to give you an opportunity to restore that media item that may have been accidentally deleted. 

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After the 30 days it will be permanently deleted from the trash can and from the site. If you want to have it deleted immediately from the trash can then you can select the small arrow next to the "Restore" button and within that dropdown you will see the "Purge" button which you can select to delete it from the trash and permanently from your site.

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2

How to Edit media items in the Media Library

Once you click on the "Media Library" you can locate specific media you would like to edit by searching the media item name and then selecting the edit button on the right of the screen:

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OR if your results are in the grid format you can select the little pencil icon which is also where you can edit your media items

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Learn how to Replace and Update Media Files
3

How to Properly Update Media & Documents Files

When updating an image or media document best practice is to go within the media library and select the edit button or edit pencil directly because deleting the media directly from the library and then uploading a new media will result in you having to go back to each page that was using that media/document and update it.

example of how to properly update media

The better method is to instead within the edit field of the image or document you can remove the file from that spot and then add your new file. This method will then have the platform update the media for you across all of the website pages so there are no broken images or broken document links.

Example of how to properly update media in the media library

Items up to 100MB may be uploaded to the site "Media Library" and used throughout any page that can embed or reference media.

4

How to Fix a "Site Currently Unavailable" Error

To fix this you will need to edit the page and the only way to do that is through the content library. 

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So navigate to the content library and type in the name of the page, which can be found within the url.

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Once you've searched for the page in the content library you can also confirm that it is the correct page by hovering your icon over the title link in search and then in the bottom left of the screen you should see the matching url. 

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Then you can go into the page to identify where the broken file link is, typically the culprit is a micro-content like a link collection list that was linking to that file. So for the example we will select the micro-content and click the gear icon to see if the broken file link is inside it. 

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You can identify which link is leading to a deleted file within the link collection by clicking on the link to pull up the dropdown window and if says "No results" then you know this is the broken link and you can remove it by selecting the remove button. 

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You know a link isn't linking to a deleted file when you see the "Media" appear within the dropdown as well as the media item information.

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Once you save the fixed link collection, the page will be fixed and that error message will go away. This is why it is important to only permanently remove files that are not being used on the site.