Media entities in Drupal are content entities, and can be administered like most other Drupal content entities. In most cases you'll likely add new Media entities via the Media Library widget when creating a new content entity like an Article. However, it's possible to add them to the library without having to attach them to a piece of content. You may also want to update an existing Media entity, or just search the library to see whether something already exists.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Learn what a Media entity is in Drupal
• Get an overview of the main Media management page
• Learn how to add, edit, and delete, Media entities
• Learn how to bulk edit Media entities in Drupal

By the end of this tutorial you'll know how to perform basic find, add, edit, and delete operations to manage the Media entities in your library.

Drupal site administrators can create new media entity types, with their own unique configurations and sets of associated fields. Different media types can be configured with different field names, permissions, moderation workflows, and display settings, making it possible to create truly custom content administration experiences. The process is similar to creating a node content type like articles or events with one major distinction: every media type inherits from a specific media source plugin. The source plugin provides domain-specific knowledge about the kind of resource being represented. For example, the Remote video source plugin used with the default Remote video media type knows how to consume and display videos from YouTube and Vimeo given only their URL.

Drupal core comes with a couple of common media source plugins, and contributed modules and custom code can add to this list, increasing the different media providers with which Drupal can integrate.

In this tutorial we'll learn how to:

• Install a contributed module that provides a new media source plugin.
• Create a new media type.

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to explain how source plugins relate to media types, and create a new media type.

The Drupal Media Library and Media ecosystem can be integrated with any third-party media provider by defining new media source plugins. Media types (Media entity bundles) have an important distinction compared to other content entity types like nodes. Every media type inherits from a specific media source plugin. The source plugin provides domain-specific knowledge about the kind of resource being represented. For example, media types dealing with images know how to validate file extensions and render <img> tags. Media types dealing with remotely hosted videos might know how to retrieve thumbnails from a remote API, and display an HTML video player and transcript.

In this tutorial we'll learn how to:

• Define a new source plugin
• Integrate a third-party API via its existing PHP library

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to create a new source plugin that exposes any third-party media resources you want to integrate with Drupal.

If the Media assets you want to use in your library support oEmbed, then you might be able to use them with a minimal custom code. Before you go down the path of creating a custom media source plugin try this approach first.

oEmbed is a standard way of allowing third party sites to embed an asset represented by a URL. The Remote Video source in core uses the oEmbed features of YouTube and Vimeo. When you paste a link into a Slack channel, and it displays a pretty card preview, or an embedded video or Spotify playlist, that's oEmbed in action. Does the Media you want to embed have a canonical URL? If so, paste it into the tool here and see if it displays oEmbed info in the results.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Learn how to enable additional oEmbed providers as Media sources
• Use the contributed oEmbed Providers module for compatible providers
• Demonstrate how to create a custom oEmbed media source plugin to further customize the results

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to embed any oEmbed-compatible content as Media assets in Drupal.

When using the Drupal Media Library to browse for available Media entities to attach to your content, the interface that you see inside the modal window is created using Views. This means you can change it for your specific use-case. This is most useful when you want to expose filters for custom fields to allow users to more easily locate content in your library. As your library of media grows, you can create powerful application-specific ways for content authors to segment the list and find their assets.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Learn how to edit the Views used by the Drupal Media Library browser
• Add a new exposed filter for the custom tags field on some media entities
• Demonstrate how this change affects the user interface for locating and selecting media

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to customize the View used by the Media Library to add new filters and make other use-case specific changes.

Media Source plugins in Drupal have a powerful feature, called field mapping, that allows an administrator to configure a Media entity type to automatically populate the value of custom fields based on metadata retrieved from the source content. For example, you can add a creator field to the Remote Video Media type, which can use YouTube as a source. When a content author adds a new Remote Video entity they can provide a URL for the YouTube video. Then the source plugin can extract the creator's name from the YouTube API and use that data to populate a custom field. This saves the content author from having to do that work themselves.

In this tutorial we'll learn:

• How to discover what source metadata is available
• How to configure a Drupal Media type to automatically populate custom fields

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to add a custom field to a Media type on your Drupal site and automatically populate it with data retrieved from the source content.

One of the most powerful features of Drupal's Media Library is that it enables content authors to re-use media entities. Have a favorite image that you like to use with all blog posts about a specific topic? Or a default icon you want to use for a tutorial unless an alternative is provided? The Media Library can accommodate this without requiring you to keep a copy of the image locally and then attach it to every node where it's needed.

This can lead to a potential issue when an editor deletes an image, thinking they've also deleted all the content that used it. If they missed a post referencing the now deleted image, what happens when there is no image to show?

The contributed Entity Usage module provides a mechanism for tracking relationships between entities. This is essential functionality when working with a library of reusable media entities because it helps ensure that media entities attached to content are not deleted.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Discuss the use case for the Entity Usage module
• Learn how to configure Entity Usage to keep track of relationships between media entities and nodes that reference them
• Prevent media items from being deleted if they are in use somewhere on the site

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to explain what the Entity Usage module does, and how to use it to solve common problems related to deleting items from a large Media library.

A commonly asked question is, "How do you add images to the body of a content item in Drupal?" You can allow users to embed images, videos, or any other media into a field configured with a WYSIWYG editor, such as CKEditor. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to enable Drupal’s Insert Media button for CKEditor, and configure the corresponding text format so that it can render embedded Media entities.

Content authors can then use the Media Library to select images (or other media) to embed into the page.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Learn how to enable the Insert Media button for CKEditor
• Demonstrate how to insert media into the body of a content item (or any other field configured to use CKEditor)

By the end of this tutorial you should know how to configure Drupal to allow content authors to embed images in content items.

Drupal's media management tools, the Media and Media Library modules, provide content authors with drag-and-drop media and asset handling, full WYSIWYG editor integration, and a library of reusable media assets. There's minimal configuration required to get started, but full control via Drupal's standard Entity and Field systems for those who need it.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Provide an introduction to the media system in Drupal and its use-cases
• Explain the Drupal core features that the Media system is built on
• Link to other tutorials that will go into much more depth on these topics

By the end of this tutorial you should know what role the Media and Media Library core modules fill and know whether or not you'll want to make use of them on your project.

Media entities are standard Drupal fieldable content entities. For the most part, they function, and are managed, in the same way as Nodes. So if you've previously created content in Drupal, much of working with Media entities should be familiar -- with some notable exceptions related to the connections between Media types and the media resources they represent.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Get an overview of Media entities, Media types, and Media fields in Drupal
• Point to other tutorials that go into more depth on individual topics
• Learn some basic terminology and concepts related to the Media system in Drupal

By the end of this tutorial you'll have an overview of the pieces that make up the Media system in Drupal core.

Media source plugins provide the link between media entities in Drupal and the actual media asset itself. They are the code that understand the difference between an image, a video, and a Tweet, and perform the translation that allows the media ecosystem to treat all media entities equally. For example, local image files, and remote YouTube videos, can both be catalogued in a similar way as media entities, but they need very different handling when it comes to displaying them.

Media sources are represented as plugins, there are a handful in Drupal core, and a developer can add new plugins to represent any type of media your application needs to catalogue.

In this tutorial we'll learn:

• How media source plugins relate to Media Types
• The responsibilities of a media source plugin

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to define the role of a media source plugin and understand what's required to define your own.

The Drupal core Media Library module provides an enhanced user interface for locating Media entities and attaching them to an article. It's a drop-in replacement for the default entity reference widget which uses a not very intuitive autocomplete field. Using the Drupal core Media Library module requires minimal configuration.

If you want to provide content creators with a gallery-like library of Media entities that they can browse through in order to find the ones they want to add to their content, the Media Library is the easiest way to do it. It can be configured to work with both Media fields and the CKEditor powered WYSIWYG editor commonly used for editing the body field of Drupal nodes. There's really no reason not to use it.

In addition to providing a better UI for locating existing Media entities, the Media Library provides a way to create new Media entities right from the content creation form. This prevents an otherwise confusing requirement where Media entities need to be created, via a different set of forms, before they can be used.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Install and configure the Media Library module to work with Media fields
• Use the user interface provided by the Media Library to improve the experience of finding and selecting Media entities to associate with a piece of content

By the end of this tutorial you'll know how to replace the default entity reference widget used for selecting Media entities with the much improved Media Library UI.

Media entities, like any content entity, work great with all the different features Drupal provides for changing the way things are displayed: view modes, Layout Builder, theme templates, and more. We're big fans of using view modes to create a component-like design system where entity types have view modes representing the different context in which they're displayed. Then we theme the view modes. This works great for displaying Media entities associated with a page and for changing the way that Media assets are displayed within the Media Library browser.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Create Hero and Sidebar view modes for Media entities
• Configure the Image Media type to use the new view modes and style each one differently
• Use the new view modes to render Image Media assets within a Layout
• Update the Media library view mode that's used by the Media Library browser to display additional information alongside the thumbnails used when selecting Media to attach to a page

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to change the way that Media assets are displayed by using view modes and display formatters in a Drupal site.

Drupal core provides support for migrating data from Drupal 6 or 7. The templates provided in core migrate your data in a very specific way. They attempt to copy things verbatim whenever possible. However, you may wish to alter this for your migrations. In this tutorial we are going to explore the various ways that you can alter the existing Drupal-to-Drupal migrations to meet your needs.

One method of creating a custom Drupal-to-Drupal migration involves using the Migrate Upgrade module to generate a set of migration configuration entities that you can use as a starting point. Even if you're not going to use the generated output in the end, this is still an informative exercise as it allows you to see examples of various migration paths.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Use the Migrate Upgrade module's Drush commands to import Drupal core's migration templates
• Examine the generated configuration entities
• Use the Migrate Tools module's Drush commands to view a list of the individual migrations that make up our Drupal-to-Drupal migration

By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to use the Migrate Upgrade module to generate the migrations that Drupal core would use to migrate content, list those migrations, and inspect them individually.

If you want to modify the Drupal-to-Drupal migrations created by Migrate Upgrade you'll need to export the Migrate Plus configuration entities, convert the ones you want to customize to standard migration .yml files, and put them into a custom module. Then, you can make edits the YAML definition of the migration, and keep your customizations in Git.

We recommend creating a new module to house the code that makes up your custom Drupal-to-Drupal migration.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Create a new module
• Export the migration configuration entities generated by drush migrate-upgrade as YAML files
• Copy the files that represent the migrations we're interested in into our new module
• Customize the copied files

By the end of this tutorial you should have a new module that contains the starting migration YAML files for your custom migration.

Before we can learn to write a custom migration, we need some sample data and a destination site for that data.

In this tutorial we'll obtain some source data to work with and configure our Drupal destination site by creating the necessary content types and fields to accommodate the source data. Then we'll look at the data that we'll be importing and start to formulate a migration plan.

By the end of this tutorial you'll have some source data and an empty but configured destination Drupal site ready for data import.

As part of creating a custom Drupal-to-Drupal migration we want to limit the set of users that are migrated from our source site into our destination Drupal site. In this tutorial we'll:

• Extend the existing source plugin
• Alter the query that's used to select users from our source site
• Update our user migration to use the new source plugin

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to override the core source plugins used when migrating from prior versions of Drupal in order to gain more control over exactly what is migrated.

Every migration is unique, which means there are loads of great examples you can review and learn from. We'll keep this tutorial up-to-date with our favorites and let you know how we think these examples might help.

Every row returned, from every source, during the execution of a migration is passed through hook_migrate_prepare_row() and hook_migrate_MIGRATION_ID_prepare_row(). Using these two hooks we can augment our migration in a variety of different ways.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Discuss the use case for hook_migrate_prepare_row()
• Implement hook_migrate_prepare_row() and use it to skip all but a select list of fields during the field migration
• Implement hook_migrate_MIGRATION_ID_prepare_row() and use it to skip all but a select list of node types

By the end of this tutorial you should have a better understanding of when hook_migrate_prepare_row() might be useful when writing your own migration, as well as how to skip rows in a migration based on conditional logic.