Asset Visibility in AEM Assets and AEM

[Mailyn_TMo]

Hello community,
Some time ago I integrated an API to work with the DAM (uploading assets, reading assets, etc.). Today I realized that assets uploaded to the DAM via Postman with an enabled technical account load correctly and appear in AEM. However, if I switch to the Adobe Experience Manager Assets view, none of the assets uploaded via Postman appear there.

Several questions:
1. Why is this happening? Could it be the account, the configuration, missing attributes, or workflows not running?

2. How can I resolve this?

3. Is there a way to make the already uploaded assets visible, or is the solution to upload them again? I'm a bit confused because, in theory, what appears in AEM should also appear in AEM Assets.

Thank you very much.

[VishalKa5 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Mailyn_TMo,

Assets uploaded via API (like Postman) might not show in AEM Assets UI because the required DAM Update Asset workflow doesn't trigger automatically, leaving metadata and thumbnails missing.​

Use following steps,

• Manually run the DAM Update Asset workflow on those files to process and index them.

• No need to re-upload; fixing metadata or running the workflow will make assets visible in AEM Assets.​

For Future Uploads

• Make sure your upload process also triggers the workflow automatically after upload, or use AEM's upload APIs that handle this.​

Thanks

[Ekhlaque]

@Mailyn_TMo the issue is almost never “Assets UI vs Assets view are different products”; it’s about which repo, which org, and which permissions each UI/API is using.You can fix this issue by pointing your Postman technical account and Assets view at the same author environment + IMS org.

• Ensuring your user + Assets view have rights to the folders you’re writing into.
• (Optionally) adjusting your upload method to the supported Assets HTTP API / direct binary upload pattern.

[manikandan90]

@Mailyn_TMo 

Several factors could cause assets uploaded via Postman to appear in AEM but not in the AEM Assets UI:

• Workflows Not Triggered
  AEM relies on workflows like DAM Update Asset to generate renditions, extract metadata, and index the asset in the repository. If these workflows didn’t run, the asset won’t appear in the Assets console.

• Technical Account Permissions
  The account used in Postman might have write access but not trigger workflows or indexing jobs. This can lead to assets being stored but not processed.

• Indexing Delay or Failure
  AEM Assets UI depends on the Oak index. If the asset wasn’t indexed (due to missing workflow or incorrect node type), it won’t show up in the UI.

Here are the steps:

• Check Node Structure
  Use CRXDE or curl to verify that the uploaded asset has:

  /content/dam/<folder>/<asset>
    └── jcr:content
        ├── metadata
        ├── renditions
        └── dam:Asset node type

  If these are missing, the asset isn’t fully recognized.

• Trigger DAM Update Asset Workflow
  Go to Tools → Workflow → Models → DAM Update Asset and run it manually on the uploaded assets. This will generate renditions and update metadata.

• Verify Permissions

• Reindex if Needed
  If assets still don’t appear, you might need to reindex the DAM-related Oak indexes.

[ManviSharma]

Hello @Mailyn_TMo ,

This usually happens when assets are uploaded through a custom API call without triggering AEM’s standard asset-ingestion workflow. In this case, the binary is stored under /content/dam, but because the DAM Update Asset workflow never ran, the Assets UI cannot index or display it.

Why this occurs

• Upload didn’t create a proper dam:Asset structure.

• Required metadata/renditions were never generated.

• DAM Update Asset workflow was not triggered.

• Indexing didn’t run for those nodes.

How to fix it

1. Run the DAM Update Asset workflow manually on the folder containing those assets.
   This usually makes them appear in the Assets UI.

2. For future uploads, use the AEM Assets Upload API, which automatically triggers ingestion and processing.

3. Re-upload only if the nodes were created incorrectly (missing dam:Asset, jcr:content, metadata, etc.).

In most cases, running the workflow is enough and you do not need to upload the assets again.