The Media Manager, and where it stops

Content, Media is where uploaded files live, which on a standard install means the images/ folder. Upload, make folders, rename, delete, crop and resize. That is the job.

What it takes

Images in jpg, png, gif, webp and svg. Documents like pdf and the Office formats. Audio and video if you allow them. The list of accepted types is in the component's options, and it is worth looking at rather than assuming: allowing svg uploads for untrusted users is a way to let someone upload a file containing script.

Adapters

The media manager works through filesystem plugins, so it does not have to be local disk. The core one is Filesystem - Local, and it can be pointed at more than one folder. Other adapters let the same interface manage files somewhere else entirely, which is useful once the images folder gets large.

Where it stops

There is no tagging, no metadata beyond alt text, no versioning and no bulk search across thousands of files. Once a site has a few thousand images and several editors, finding "the photo from the 2023 open day" becomes archaeology.

The practical answer is folder discipline from day one. By year, by project, by client, whatever fits, decided before the first upload rather than after the thousandth.

One habit worth having

Resize before uploading. The media manager can crop and scale after the fact, but the original stays on disk and the backup grows anyway. Getting the size right on the way in costs ten seconds and saves the whole cleanup.