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October 9, 2019
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AEM - Collections vs Folders

  • October 9, 2019
  • 5 replies
  • 4249 views

Hi,

I am just wondering what the pros and cons are for using Collections as well as folders for imagery within AEM.

I currently feel like they are the same thing. Can someone explain the difference, please?

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Best answer by rmahendra

Collections only have a reference to the original assets or a search query in case of smart collection. Your folders will have the actual assets. Assets are grouped into different folders based on customer's taxonomy and business requirements. Collections can be used to group assets(again only references are stored) from different folders for sharing.

5 replies

Ankur_Khare
Community Advisor
Community Advisor
October 10, 2019

AEM Collections are a set of assets bundled together, which can include different types of assets like images , pdf and videos  from different locations. Many times we face the requirement where a customer wants to share group of multiple types of assets with either internal or external clients, this can be achieved using aem collections. These collections can be shared with various users with edit level, owner level and viewer level privileges

This kind of feature you can't achieve using jujst folders.

Refer below link for more details-

http://www.aemcq5tutorials.com/tutorials/adobe-aem-cq5-tutorials/aem-collections-comprehensive-guide/

November 6, 2019

Can you not put all the imagery you want in a folder and just share the url to the folder? Sorry I am a tad confused as to what the benefit is of collections over asset folders still.

Adobe Employee
November 6, 2019

The biggest advantage of using collections is that you can group assets dynamically, say based on search criteria.  Such assets don't need to be in a specific folder (static).

These might help [1] and [2]

[1] Managing Collections

[2] A Comprehensive guide to AEM Collections

rmahendra
Adobe Employee
rmahendraAdobe EmployeeAccepted solution
Adobe Employee
November 7, 2019

Collections only have a reference to the original assets or a search query in case of smart collection. Your folders will have the actual assets. Assets are grouped into different folders based on customer's taxonomy and business requirements. Collections can be used to group assets(again only references are stored) from different folders for sharing.

November 7, 2019

Ah! I understand now, thank you!!