Media Library: Real-time collaboration, version cleanup, and smarter search in the Media Library

This release brings real-time collaboration features to the Media Library, letting you see when teammates are viewing the same content. You can also now delete asset versions and benefit from significantly improved search for filenames with punctuation.

Real-time presence indicators

You can now see when other team members are viewing the same assets, folders, or collections. Avatar stacks appear on grid cards and in the folder tree, showing who's looking at what. A new "Who is here" menu in the app header lets you jump directly to wherever a colleague is currently working.

When editing aspects in the sidebar, you'll see teammate avatars next to the specific field they're focused on—the same collaborative experience you're used to in Sanity Studio.

Delete asset versions

You can now remove unwanted versions of an asset directly from the versions sidebar. Click the menu on any version and select "Delete version" to remove it. This is particularly useful when you've accidentally uploaded the wrong file as a version—previously there was no way to fix this without contacting support.

The current version and versions that are in use elsewhere cannot be deleted until you update those references first.

Improved search for filenames with punctuation

Searching for names containing hyphens, dots, or underscores, like my-upload or stockphoto-123.jpg, is now much more reliable, including partial matches while you type.

Excluding terms is more precise too: photo -test (where -test hides assets matching "test") now works based on the title and metadata you can see, making results more predictable.

Failed video processing feedback

When a video fails to process, you now see a clear error state instead of an endless loading spinner. The grid card shows a critical indicator, and the sidebar displays the specific error message explaining what went wrong.

🐛 Notable bugfixes

Fixed an issue where asset type filters could not be applied when browsing folders, which could let you see and select the wrong file types in Studio pickers

Fixed Studio plugin authentication recovery taking 15-30 seconds after a token expired—it now recovers almost immediately

Fixed the sidebar jumping when switching between assets due to the metadata section briefly collapsing during load

Fixed an issue where assets would disappear from your "Uploaded by" filter results when another user edited the asset's metadata (such as renaming it). The filter now correctly identifies you as the uploader regardless of who subsequently edited the asset.