Screenshot of the media browser

The Media module provides an extensible framework for managing files and multimedia assets, regardless of whether they are hosted on your own site or a 3rd party site - it is commonly referred to as a 'file browser to the internet'.

Media is a drop-in replacement for the Drupal core upload field with a unified User Interface where editors and administrators can upload, manage, and reuse files and multimedia assets. Any files uploaded before Media was enabled will automatically take advantage of the many of the features it comes with.

Drupal 7 installation

Pre-installation/upgrade
Quick install: Follow this recipe, or see online installation documentation.

Drupal 8/9/10+

Drupal core version 8.4+ now includes a media module with similar functionality. In #2831274: Bring Media entity module to core as Media module core adopted media namespace to add support for full-featured media entities. In case you are using the 8.3.x contrib media on your sites you need to uninstall it and remove it from the codebase before updating to Drupal 8.4+/D9/D10 from D8.3. This doc might help answer how to configure the 'core' module

Thank you Aaron

Aaron Winborn
Without his kindness, generosity, humility, and dedication, this module and many many others would not have been possible. This module and all Drupal Media team efforts are in dedication to him and all he has done for our community.

You will be missed, friend.

Read more about Aaron Winborn at his community spotlight and the new community award announcement.

What is the difference between 1.x and 2.x and 3.x and 4.x?

The 7.x-2.30 is the recommended version. Please see the release notes for 7.x-2.30.

The 7.x-3.x
7.x-3.3 has been released. It has improved integration with ckeditor for alignments. New code that has not yet had a lot of mileage will go into 7.x-3.x and will be brought into 7.x-2.31 when confidence is high enough. We want to keep 7.x-2.x as stable as possible and bring in functionality and fixes into 7.x-2.x when confidence is very high in what we've put into 7.x-3.x. If you are a developer, or just want to use the cutting edge code and want to help out with media, use 7.x-3.x.

The 7.x-4.x is the bleeding edge, it is looking very stable now, but if you want to play it safe, stick with 7.x-2.30. 7.x-4.x is based on 7.x-3.x. Intended to be used with ckeditor and wysiwyg only, if you are not using ckeditor and not using the wysiwyg module then do not use this version. 7.x-2.x is still the recommended at this time.

The 7.x-1.x . If you are still running this version, please make sure to restrict the media browser permissions to only trusted users. See the release notes for media 7.x-1.10.

See the wiki page on differences between the 1.x and 2.x versions for more detailed information.

Features

  • Embed files into any textarea using a WYSIWYG editor (requires the Wysiwyg module).
  • Makes files fieldable, enabling the use of text fields to store captions on images, taxonomy fields for audio file genres, etc.
  • Provides a robust display system, allowing images to be be displayed via specific image styles, videos to be loaded through third-party players and more.
  • Enables the user of remote media from sites like YouTube, Flickr or any oEmbed provider.
  • A unified interface for adding new or reusing existing media with file and image fields.
  • Administration screens for CRUD dealing with Media.
  • Mass importing of files.
  • Drag and drop upload (requires the Plupload module).

Requirements

All versions of Media require:

  • Javascript must be enabled in the user's browser.
  • CTools

Media 7.x-2.x additionality requires:

  • File Entity (included in Media 1.x, this was moved to a separate project for Media 2.x)
  • Views

Known Issues

  • Accessibility: Media 1.x does not have an out-of-the-box solution for handling HTML attributes, including alt.
  • Audio/Video: Media 1.x does not include any way to 'display' audio and video media files out of the box. The use of MediaElement or MediaFront is recommended.
  • Non images and WYSIWYG: There are several known issues in both Media 1.x and 2.x when embedding non-image media via the WYSWIYG. The use of Entity Embed is recommended.

Recommended modules

See the wiki page for all Media-related modules.

How can I get involved?

  • Media Support Squad: Modeled after the successful Views Bug Squad to help out in the issue queues. See the group wiki page for more info.
  • IRC: The Media team has their own IRC channel: #drupal-media which is open to all Media team members, contributors, and users to hold real-time discussions and ask questions.
  • Issue Queue: Participate in the issue queue by helping be a part of the bug squad or by creating and testing patches.
  • Group: See events and discussions happening in the Media group on groups.drupal.org

Resources

Credits

Acquia, Advomatic, Palantir.net and Zivtech have sponsored significant work on this project. Thank you to them and to the countless individuals who have also contributed valuable time.

Supporting organizations: 

Project information

Releases