Configuring supported file types in Media libraries

Media libraries support the following types of images: bmp, gif, ico, png, wmf, jpg, jpeg, tiff, tif, webp. These types of image files can be uploaded and displayed on your site by default.

The system detects audio and video files based on their MIME type (audio types starting with the audio/ prefix and video types starting with the video/ prefix). For successfully detected audio and video file types, the system renders appropriate HTML5 markup. The types of files that can be previewed or played on your site therefore depend on the web browser (modern HTML5 web browsers typically support one or more of the ogg, mp4, or webm video codecs, and mp3, wav, or ogg audio codecs).

All other file types are recognized as documents, which means that you cannot play them as videos or display them as images. You can still store them in the library and users can download them on the live site.

Enabling upload of other file types

If you want to configure the system to allow upload of a custom file type into media libraries, you need to:

1. Enable the custom file extensions to be uploaded into media libraries.
2. (Optional) If you want to use the custom extension as an image, audio, or video file, you need to configure the system to recognize the extension as a media file.

Allowing upload of selected files into media libraries

To customize what media files and documents can be uploaded to media libraries:

1. Open the Settings application.
2. Navigate to the Content → Media category.
3. Add the selected file extensions into the Media file allowed extensions setting (separated by semicolons).
4. Save the changes.

Configuring custom detection of media file types

By default, the system can recognize and process any media type, if you have the right player for the given file type. You can allow custom file types to be recognized as media files via configuration keys. However, by adding the media file type configuration, you disable automatic detection and support for media file types other than those explicitly specified.

To configure specific file types to be recognized as media:

1. Add the following keys into the appSettings section of your administration project’s web.config file.

   Copy

   
   
   
    <add key="CMSImageExtensions" value="bmp;gif;ico;png;wmf;jpg;jpeg;tiff;tif;webp" /> 
    <add key="CMSAudioExtensions" value="wav;mp3" /> 
    <add key="CMSVideoExtensions" value="mp4;ogg" />
   
   
    

2. Save the web.config file.

3. Add the same keys with the same values to the configuration file of your live site project, depending on your development model:

   • web.config for MVC 5 projects

   • appsettings.json for ASP.NET Core projects (by default)

     apsettings.json example

     Copy

     
     
     
       "CMSImageExtensions" : "bmp;gif;ico;png;wmf;jpg;jpeg;tiff;tif;webp",
       "CMSAudioExtensions" : "wav;mp3",
       "CMSVideoExtensions" : "mp4;ogg"
     
     
       

Files of the specified types are now recognized as media files of the corresponding type. For example, image files are offered in the Insert image dialog of the rich text editor.

MIME type mapping for WebP files

If you wish to use WebP images, make sure that you have a <mimeMap> MIME type mapping under the <staticContent> element in the web.config file of your administration project, as well as the live site project if using the MVC 5 development model.

...
<staticContent>
  <remove fileExtension=".webp" />
  <mimeMap fileExtension=".webp" mimeType="image/webp" />