Managing the Files in your Wistia Account

Need help organizing your media files? Want to know how your account is structured? We’ve got you covered!

Overview

Medias in your Wistia account are organized into projects. Projects are the building blocks of organization in your Wistia account — they’re kind of like file folders on your computer. Medias uploaded to your Wistia account are uploaded to specific projects. A project could contain all the training medias for your organization, all the sales materials related to a specific product, or just a bunch of your upcoming content.

You can also create a Channel, which showcases your medias on a single page in a set order to play one after another. You can even enable podcasting for your Channel!

Check out the projects, medias, or channels sections to read all about it.

Content Library

The Content Library page is where all of the content lives in your account and where you can create new content as well. You can sort by alphabetical order, when projects were created, and when they were updated. You can also filter this page to view your favorites, just your Channels, Projects, or a list of all your media.

Favorites

The Favorite section allows you to star your Channels and projects, keeping the highest priority ones within the Favorites section. Hover over the title of any project or Channel and click the star to add it to your Favorites page.

Search

You can search your account and apply a number of different filters to help narrow down your search and find exactly what you’re looking for. Start by typing in the search bar in your account (you can find this on just about every account page!).

If you don’t see what you’re looking for in the content that populates below the search bar, press “Enter” or click to see all of the search results for your query, and filter from there.

After clicking to view all of the search results, you can filter the content based on specific criteria, or view any users that come up with your search.

You can filter:

• Type (Channels, Episodes, Media, Projects)
• Tags
• All Content, Active Content, or Archived Content
• Date Created (last 7 days, 28 days, 90 days, this month, or custom)

In the list of results, you can see media type, name, when it was last updated, when it was created, and the total number of plays for each one.

User results show their role, name, and when they were created.

Projects

Projects in Wistia are like folders to organize your content. There are a few options within a project; the first one is called Media. This is your general view of your project and all of its contents. You’ll also see that you can access your project’s Permissions, Analytics, export the contents of the project into a .zip file, or delete the project (and all of its content) entirely.

Create a New Project

To create a new project, head to your Content Library Page. From here select “New” and from the menu select “Project.” A new project will be created (called “Untitled Project” until you rename it), and you will immediately be taken in where you can upload content, invite contacts, and edit the project name.

You can also create a project when uploading content. From the Content Library, click “New” and select “Upload Media.” After you’ve selected the media you’d like to upload, you can click to “Create a new project” and then continue to upload your media.

Copy an Existing Project

To copy a project, from the Content Library page, scroll to the Project you want to copy. Hover over the Project. Two icons will appear to the right of the title - a trash bin to delete, and a copy icon. Click that icon to create a duplicate of the project.

The Project Title

The title of the project is how you will find it in your account. By default, the title is Untitled Project, but we know you want a better title than that!

To edit the title, hover over it with your mouse, and click the pencil icon. Edit the title text, and click “Save” once you’re done.

Changing the title of the project won’t affect embed codes or links, either.

Add a Description to your Project

To add a description to your project, hover over the project title and click the pencil icon that appears. Add your description text to the second field in the form and click “Save” when you’re ready.

You can type plain text into the description field or you can use (limited) Markdown to style the text or add links into your description. Click “See more tips” to fine a guide explaining more about Markdown.

New Section

Project sections allow you to organize media within a project. Medias can be put into project sections, and the sections can then be expanded or collapsed to provide a cleaner experience for projects with many medias. To create a section, hover over the space between your project’s title and the first media in the project.

A new section will be created, which you can name, and drag-and-drop medias into. To give the section a title, hover over the title text, select the “Edit” button, update the text, and then press Enter.

Permissions

Projects can be in one of two states: unlocked or locked. By default, new projects are set to unlocked.

• Unlocked projects can be accessed by anyone with the link. Your content is still not able to be found via search engines (like Google or Bing), but this setting makes it quick and painless to share your medias with someone else.
• Locked projects can only be accessed when the viewer is invited by email.

To see or adjust your current project’s settings, open “Permissions.”

If you want to share your project and all of the medias within it, you should set your project to unlocked, and then share the URL with viewers. That link would look something like:

mydomain.wistia.com/projects/xGFHnn33

Viewers who followed that URL would be able to access all media in the project.

If, however, you only shared the URL for a single media, the viewer would only have access to that media — not the entire project. Tricky, huh?

Sharing a project with a private login is covered in-depth on the private sharing page.

Delete Project

To delete a project, select Delete Project.

Say sayonara to that project!

Channels

Channels are a great way to share content in a format where medias will play one after the other, and are a great way to create a deep media engagement experience.

Create a Channel

Just like with creating a Project, you want to start by heading into your Content Library page. From there, you can click “Create” and select the option to “Create a Channel.”

Create a Podcast

By creating a Channel, you’ll have the option to enable Podcasting as well. In the Set up your Channel box, select Yes, I want to distribute media in my Channel to podcasting apps, and click “Create Channel.”

Edit/Preview Channel

Before you release your Channel into the wild, you’ll probably want to add a bunch of sweet customizations. Select Edit/Preview Channel to view your Channel and edit it.

Check out all of the customizations you can add to your Channel here.

The Channel Title and Description

When you create a Channel, you will automatically be prompted to add a title and description. You can update that information at anytime by going to your Channel’s Channel Details page or the Edit panel of your Channel’s preview.

Published and Unpublished Episodes

When you create a Channel, you can either upload brand new medias from scratch or use the Move & Copy option to import your existing medias from a separate project into your new Channel.

By default, the new medias in your Channel will be unpublished. They can be published by selecting Edit under Publish Settings on the media’s page. For a more in-depth look at publishing episodes to your Channel, check out this page.

Channel Options

You’ll notice on the left hand Channel menu that there are options that differ from what a Project menu may look like.

• Analyze provides you with all the amazing stats and metrics that you’ve been collecting from the episodes within your Channel.
• Subscribers details a list of all viewers who have subscribed to your Channel.
• Promote allows you to create custom audiences based on your Channel viewing data. You’ll want to first make sure that you’ve enabled the Facebook Ads or Google Analytics integration. Take a look at our Subscribers Page to learn about setting up Subscribers and how to Promote your Channel.
• Podcast Settings are where you can set up and manage your podcast details.
• Permissions allow you to add or remove users in your Channel.
• More Options will provide you with two options. From here, you can either download all medias in your Channel, or delete the entire Channel.

Medias

You can filter your Content Library to see a full list of all the media in your account. This means you can see all video and audio files. If a media is in a Channel, this view shows you both published episodes, and draft episodes.

The All Media page has several options to filter content. You can filter by:

• Projects/Channels
• Tags
• All Content, Active Media, Archived Media
• Date Created (Last 7 days, 28 days, 90 days, this month, custom)
• Duration
• Created By

You can also sort the page by Last Updated, Name (A-Z), Name (Z-A), First Created, Last Created, First Updated, and Last Updated.

Medias live within projects. If you click into a media within a project, you’ll see a menu. Under this menu (depending on your permissions) you’ll be able to: Customize the media, view the Stats, create an A/B Test , set the Project Defaults, Replace Media, Download, or Delete the media. You’ll see options to embed and share as well.

Upload

Before you can do anything awesome with your medias, you have to upload them!

Head into any of your already created projects (or you can create a new one). Within that project, click “Add” and select your desired upload option.

You can also upload media directly from the Content Library. Click “New” and then select “Upload Media” from the dropdown menu.

Check out the uploading page for more information on uploading.

Update Media Title

The title of the media is how you will find it in your account, and will also help boost your media SEO. By default, the title is the name of the media you uploaded, but can be updated at any time (it doesn’t have to be set before uploading). Changing the title of the media won’t affect embed codes or links, either. To edit the title, hover over it with your cursor, and click the Edit button. Edit the title text, and press the Save button at the bottom of the form.

Media Description

Like the title of your media, the media description is important for media SEO purposes — so make sure you add a description!

Adding or editing your media description is done in the same way that you edit the title. Hover your cursor over the media title and click the Edit button. Add a description in the second field of the form and click the Save button to submit your changes.

The media description can help set context to your media or link viewers to your homepage or another media. The description will also be passed through to services like Twitter (see more on our Social Sharing page).

You can type plain text into the description field or you can use Markdown to style the text and put images or links into your description. Clicking the link Formatting with Markdown will open a guide explaining more about Markdown. Bear in mind that line breaks will appear in the description on the media page, but will not appear in the media’s description in a Channel.

For more information on how to use Markdown in your media descriptions, head on over to the Markdown Styling page!

Media Info

Below a media, the “Info” tab has a variety of information about the media. Here, you’ll find:

• Created Date
• Created By
• Play Count
• Type
• File Size
• Duration

You can also click to view the embed locations of the media.

Archive Media

Archiving media allows you to store media in your account that you’re not currently embedding or sharing publicly. This gives you the option to keep media in your account in an inactive state, but you can still access them and see their analytics!

To archive a media, hover over your desired media and click the checkbox that appears to the left. Check off as many media as you’d like.

This will open up a panel that allows you to select to archive them.

Once you select to archive them, you’ll be prompted to confirm your decision, and then you’re all set!

To access your archived media, select “Archived” from the “Content” dropdown menu in your account or click “Archived” in the lefthand menu from your Content Library.

Archived media have an “Archived” label on them as well.

Restore Archived Media

To restore archived media, hover over your desired media and click the checkbox that appears to the left.

Click “Restore” and then select the Project or Channel you’d like to move your media to. This will default to the Project or Channel the media was originally in, but you can choose a different one too! Once restored, the media will retain its original URL and reappear in any embed locations (if the embed code is still on a webpage).

Download Media

There are multiple ways to download media within your Wistia account. The most common way is found within the menu on a media’s page. You will see an option to download the media file. You are able to choose to download either the original media file that was uploaded or one of the media’s derivatives (these are the versions at different quality levels that we created when we encoded your media).

If you are downloading a media from within a Channel, select “More Options” on the lefthand Channel menu.

Another option is to allow viewers to download via the Share button on the player. Check out the Share page for a walkthrough.

Export All Media

You can download the entire contents of a project on the project’s landing page. Head to any project within Wistia and you’ll see an option to Export All Media. Clicking this will allow you to export all of the original media files within the project as a .zip file. There is a 4GB limit on the size of the .zip file.

Who Can Download?

Account Owners and Managers by default are the only users with access to download medias.

By default, contacts invited into Wistia are not permitted to download your media files, but they can be granted this permission. A contact’s ability to download files is controlled via permissions at the project level.

There is more on allowing download permissions on the Users & Permissions page.

You can also allow any visitors to download your media via the Share buttons. More on that here.

Move & Copy

Moving and copying medias helps you reorganize your content, transfer media between Projects and Channels, and duplicate medias for testing.

Read on for all of the instructions for moving and copying your media.

Moving Medias

Moving medias is good for keeping your account tidy.

To move medias between projects and/or Channels, hover over your desired media(s) and click the checkbox that appears to the left.

This will open up the Move & Copy panel at the bottom of the page.

You can select “Move to” or “Copy to,” which will allow you to move or copy media to any Project or Channel in your account.

Fun fact! Moving medias between projects and/or Channels within your account won’t change their embed codes or URLs. Phew. 😅

Moving Medias Between Accounts

If you are an Account Owner or Manager on multiple accounts and use the same email address to sign into them, you can move media to other accounts. This will also work if you’re a Collaborator who’s been given Admin permissions for a project.

If you’re moving medias that have analytics, however, the analytics will not transfer between accounts.

You will not need to re-embed your medias if you move them from one account to another. The embed code does not reference the account itself, and the medias will maintain their hashed IDs (the ten character code that’s associated with your media — something like abcde12345), so there’s no need to update the embed codes.

Copying Medias

Copying is good for creating multiple instances of a media with different customizations, or for zero-ing out analytics for a certain media (i.e. you make a copy and then re-embed). When you make a copy of a media, while the content is the same, this is completely brand new and separate from the original file. As a result, the copy will not include analytics from the original media, but instead will have its own analytics that start from scratch.

To copy a media, hover over it and click the checkbox that appears to the left. This will open up a panel at the bottom of the page where you can select “Copy to.”

Once you’ve clicked “Copy to,” a modal will open where you can select your desired Project or Channel to copy into.

Once you’ve select the appropriate Project or Channel, you can confirm your action by click “Copy x items.”

Move & Copy for Channels

While Channels are structured a bit differently from Projects, you can still move media (or move copies of media) into your Channel!

On the Channel page, click the arrow on the Add button to expand a menu of options. Selecting Add from Wistia will open up the Move & Copy menu that will allow you to pull medias into your Channel.

Set Project Defaults

If you’d like all of the medias in one project to have the same customizations, you’ll definitely find that Set Project Defaults comes in handy. With this, you can apply the customizations of one media to the other medias in the project.

You can choose to Set Project Defaults on all current medias in a project, or all future medias in a project. You’ll see this option right on a media’s page.

You might be wondering which customizations will actually be added to other medias in your project. We’ll apply the player color and controls settings. Comment settings, Calls to action, chapters, captions, annotation links, and media thumbnails won’t apply, as these are typically specific to individual media.

Replace Media

If necessary, you can also replace a media within your Wistia account. This allows you to update a media without needing to change the embed code. Check out the replace media page for more.

Delete

To delete a media, select Delete from the media’s page.

If you’re in a project, just click that cute lil' trashcan to the right of your media. It will appear when you hover over the media title on the project page.

If you are deleting a media from your Channel, select “More Options” on the left hand Channel menu and click “Delete Episode.”

If the media has received any plays in the last 90 days, we’ll also display the embed location where the plays occurred.

If you have questions, reach out to our Support Team at support@wistia.com!