Use Creative Cloud Libraries to capture, organize, and share design elements with your creative teams. Creative Cloud Libraries accelerate work by reducing clicks in the creative process, making it easy for designers to use the right assets and for organizations to control the use of assets.
Libraries in projects allow you to easily and quickly share collections of elements with your organization or collaborators. Previously, libraries in projects were available only with Creative Cloud for teams and Creative Cloud for enterprise, but are now available to all Creative Cloud users. Learn more about Creative Cloud Libraries.
Business organizations can allow users to create and manage libraries in two ways: either in users’ personal storage or in a project. In Creative Cloud for teams and Creative Cloud for enterprise organizations, projects are part of the organization’s business storage; in Creative Cloud for Individuals or free accounts, projects are part of the personal storage. When saving to personal storage, the creator owns the library and has full control over sharing and managing the library. When a user creates a library in a folder in business storage, there is no individual owner; the organization shares it and can inherit user permissions from the project. Libraries in business storage help ensure continuity if a user changes roles, leaves a project, or leaves the company.
You must create a project to allow users to create libraries in business storage. A system or storage admin can do this in the Adobe Admin Console, or if the organization allows, users can do this in Adobe Express.
Once the project is created, users can create libraries and Express files and save them to an available project or in personal storage. A user must have Edit permissions in a project to be able to save new content there.
Users assigned to the project will inherit permissions to all libraries stored in that folder, and editors can directly invite individuals to a library itself.
Just like a library in personal storage, the creator of a library can set permissions to view and use it.
Express users can browse brands and libraries in projects through the Projects tab found under Your Stuff in Express. In order to use the library in other Creative Cloud applications, you should Add them to your libraries.
Manage your libraries from Express, the Creative Cloud desktop application, the Libraries panel in Adobe applications, or Creative Cloud on the web. You can find your libraries in projects by looking for the projects icon next to them.
If enabled by your administrators, users can create new projects inside Express. A project is simply a shared storage location for brands, libraries, and Express files, with users assigned to the project. Users who have been added to a project will automatically inherit permissions to the brands and libraries contained within it. Using projects streamlines sharing content within them.
Users can be assigned to one or more projects, so there is flexibility in the way you set up your structure. We recommend that you consider limiting folders to the workgroups that need access to shared design assets. Start by looking at your organization and how the different groups of people work together. Then create projects to align with those needs. For example:
For scenarios like a corporate style guide, set up a project with a limited number of editors. Invite viewers to the project directly, or set the project’s access to Everyone at <your org> can view. Create a library in that project to store corporate colors, type styles, logos, and other brand assets, and configure the library with view-only permissions to maintain control, ensure brand consistency, and ensure designers always have the most up-to-date assets. Learn more.
Create projects that map to various departments or workgroups to easily provide access to a collection of libraries to the relevant collaborators. Invite project members as editors, and collaborators can upload elements, colors, text styles, Adobe Stock photos, brushes, videos, and more that are specific to their department or project. These items and updates are automatically synchronized across all users.
Your organization may have an existing project called Everyone that has your entire company assigned at the project level. If you have libraries that should be shared with all users, such as a corporate style guide, this may be an appropriate project, though you may need to adjust user permissions to view/comment. Depending on your business size, we recommend that you evaluate the need for such a broad distribution of libraries and consider creating projects with a more limited scope and moving libraries from the Everyone project to those with more limited access.
Creative Cloud users can move libraries from personal storage to a project. This allows them to quickly share the library with users who may need access, while also benefiting from shared ownership.
Open the Libraries panel in a Creative Cloud desktop app.
Select the More Options icon for a library and choose Move.
Choose the storage location and set the access level.
Select Save.
Libraries offer two permission settings: View and Use, and Edit. In order for creatives to use the contents of a library, such as drag and drop graphics, apply colors, fonts, and character styles, they must have at least View permission. This permission grants slightly more access than a traditional View permission, as it also allows them to use the library.
Users with Edit permission can perform more advanced library management: edit library contents (delete, rename, add), create and modify groups in the library, share the library with other users, and even delete the entire library.
For a corporate style guide, the small number of members on your brand team should be configured as editors, and all other library collaborators can be granted only View permission.
To make the most out of business storage, admins can rely on the settings at the project level to provide access to all libraries within that project. For example, if you have a Growth Marketing-specific library, admins can create a project for the department and assign users once at the project level. Then, for every new library created within that folder, access rights will be automatically granted to all users already assigned to the folder.
When you create a library in a project, it is automatically available to collaborators assigned at the folder level. You can further limit permissions for project collaborators by leaving the Restrict editing toggle set. Disabling this setting will allow project editors to edit the library, while project commenters can still view and use the contents.
For each library, in addition to inheriting users from the project, you can always invite additional individual users or groups. There is no limit on the number of collaborators you can have in a library.
Individuals: Single users can be within or outside the organization (depending on the asset-sharing policy).
Groups: Azure Active Directory-synced groups that are created by the administrator in the Organization’s Azure Active Directory and are synced via Admin Console to the organization's Address Book.
Learn how to add editors and viewers for collaboration.
Broader access settings
Projects are now available for all Creative Cloud users. However, the benefits of projects in business storage are available only for Creative Cloud for teams and Creative Cloud for enterprise that use Adobe storage for business.
Currently, end users can't create and manage folders. They must rely on storage or system admins.
See how you can contact your administrator.
The number of libraries you can create is unlimited. You are limited only by your amount of Creative Cloud storage space.
The maximum file size for any single asset is 1GB. Library assets must synchronize to the cloud, and huge files take time to upload. Remember that other creatives may be using the same library. The file size of elements like color swatches, text, and paragraph and character styles are negligible, while assets like multi-layer high-resolution Photoshop content are heavy assets.
You can have any number of collaborators on a library.
Adobe Bridge is a desktop application that makes it easy to quickly locate and view large numbers of files in different graphic file formats stored on your local hard drive or file server. Some people build libraries of assets consisting of folders on their hard drive and use Adobe Bridge to quickly navigate those folders and work with the assets. This workflow is similar to that of Creative Cloud Libraries in some respects, but Creative Cloud Library assets are stored in the cloud, appear in a panel in the desktop applications, and are more closely integrated with the functionality of Creative Cloud applications. Creative Cloud Libraries also work closely with the Creative Cloud mobile apps and specific third-party applications in ways that Adobe Bridge does not.
The Creative Cloud add-on for Microsoft Word and PowerPoint lets you access your libraries within Word and PowerPoint. Incorporate your design assets into your presentations, reports, brochures, and other collateral. For details, see Adobe Creative Cloud Add-in for Word and PowerPoint.
Create automatic workflows called zaps by connecting your Creative Cloud Libraries to Google Sheets, Slack, or any of the 1,500+ other apps available on Zapier. For details, see Creative Cloud Libraries for Zapier.
Adobe Creative Cloud for Gmail lets you share links to content stored in Creative Cloud Files, libraries, and Mobile Creations directly in your Gmail messages.
Creative Cloud Libraries are not a replacement for a DAM (Digital Asset Management) system. A DAM system is primarily intended to maintain many approved image assets. Creative Cloud Libraries are best suited for design elements that speed in-application tasks such as creating and applying colors, paragraph styles, page elements, and assets. Creative Cloud Libraries are synced to each user’s desktop. A DAM, by contrast, runs exclusively on a server or in the cloud.
