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

Medias in your Wistia account are organized into folders. Folders are the building blocks of organization in your Wistia account. Medias uploaded to your Wistia account are uploaded to specific folders. A folder 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 folders, medias, or channels sections to read all about it.

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 folders were created, and when they were updated. You can also filter this page to view your favorites, just your Channels, folders, or a list of all your media.

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

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:

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.

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

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

You can also create a folder 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 folder” and then continue to upload your media.

To copy a folder, from the Content Library page, scroll to the folder you want to copy. Hover over the folder. 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 folder.

The title of the folder is how you will find it in your account. By default, the title is Untitled Folder, 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 folder won’t affect embed codes or links, either.

To add a description to your folder, hover over the folder 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.

Subfolders allow you to further organize media within a folder. Medias can be put into subfolders, and the subfolders can then be expanded or collapsed to provide a cleaner experience for folders with many medias.

You can add a subfolder by clicking the “+” button in the folder. Or you can navigate to the “Add” button and select “Add new subfolder” from the drop-down menu. ​

This will create a new subfolder within the parent folder. You can add medias to the subfolder, change the title of the subfolder, and change the order of the subfolders within the parent folder. To give the subfolder a title, hover over the title text, select the “Edit” button, update the text to the title of your choice, and then press Enter. You can also share links directly to subfolders
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You can choose how the media and subfolders inside a folder are displayed! Media views and subfolder views can be changed independently.

You have two layout options for how your folder content: List or Grid. You can choose between these options using the “Change view” icon on your folder page.

In list view, your media are displayed in a vertical list like the screenshot above. If you decide vertical lists aren’t your style, you can select grid view instead!

You can customize the layout of the subfolders in a folder! To toggle between the two layouts use the “Change view” icon on the folder page.

In an Inline view your subfolders will display inline within your folder. You can collapse and expand them to see the contents of each subfolder inline with all the folder content. Click on the subfolder’s title to open it in a separate window.

In the Grouped view your subfolders will display at the top of your folder:

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

To see or adjust your current folder’s settings, open “Share.”

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

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

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

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

To delete a folder, select Delete Folder.

Say sayonara to that folder!

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.

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

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.”

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.

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.

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 folder 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.

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

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:

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 folders. If you click into a media within a folder, 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 Folder Defaults, Replace Media, Download, or Delete the media. You’ll see options to embed and share as well.

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

Head into any of your already created folders (or you can create a new one). Within that folder, 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.

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, click the "Edit" button. Edit the title text, and press the Save button at the bottom of the form. If your media has a transcript, we'll suggest a title for it with AI.

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. 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!

If your media has a transcript, you can also choose to let AI write a description for you. Once you're all set, click "Save."

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

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

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

Click “Restore” and then select the folder or Channel you’d like to move your media to. This will default to the folder 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).

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 your media has a transcript, you can also download it with captions.

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.

It’s possible to export all files at the folder level or the account level on the Content page.

You can download the entire contents of a folder on the folder’s landing page. Head to any folder 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 folder as a .zip file. There is a 4GB limit on the size of the .zip file.

Navigate to your account's content library. Access Media Section: Once in the content library, locate and click on the "Media" section. Then select the checkbox next to the total number of media at the top of the page.

After selecting all the files, the bulk actions toolbar will appear at the bottom of your window. Within the bulk actions toolbar find and click on the "Download" option. When your files are ready for download you’ll receive a notification and a link to download in the Activity Tray. A copy of the .zip containing your files will also be mailed to your inbox.

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 folder 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.

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

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

Moving medias is good for keeping your account tidy.

To move medias between folders 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 folder or Channel in your account.

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

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 folder.

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 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 folder or Channel to copy into.

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

While Channels are structured a bit differently from folders, 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.

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

You can choose to Set Folder Defaults on all current medias in a folder, or all future medias in a folder. 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 folder. The following will be applied:

We wont apply Calls to Action, Chapters, Captions, Annotation Links, and media Thumbnails since these are typically specific to individual media.

Quickly update multiple Player colors at once from a Folder, Channel, or the All Media tab.

To apply a color to multiple Players from a high level:

Be sure to click “Apply” to save your changes.

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.

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

If you’re in a folder, just click that cute lil' trashcan to the right of your media. It will appear when you hover over the media title on the folder 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 [email protected]!