Draft or unpublished assets are files and file versions that can only be accessed inside the ImageKit DAM, and their public URLs are not accessible outside of it. This feature is useful when you want to upload files to ImageKit and are still working on it but do not want to make them publicly accessible.
ImageKit allows you to upload files in draft or published state. You can also change the state of any file and its versions already present in the Media Library. You can check the file's state, whether it is published or draft, on its detail page.
Uploading assets as drafts by default
By default, files are uploaded as published. If you want to ensure that all files uploaded to ImageKit are in the draft or unpublished state, you can configure that option in the Media Library settings.
Publish or unpublish files
You can only publish or unpublish at most 100 files at once.
You can publish or unpublish a single or multiple files at once. Select the files and open the 'Publish or unpublish file' popup. You can check the option to publish or unpublish a file here. If you want this change to apply to all versions of the files, check the 'Include file versions' option. This operation happens asynchronously.
Search for draft files
You can search for files and file versions in the draft state in the Media Library. Go to the Media Library and click on the search bar. In the advanced search filters, select 'File published' and choose the option to show only unpublished files.
Understanding the behaviour of URLs on unpublishing a file
When you unpublish a file, the file's public URL will no longer be accessible. In addition, a purge cache request is triggered for the unpublished file. It's important to note that these purge cache requests count towards the quota allocated to your account.
Even if you decide to unpublish only the current version of the file, the cache for all its other versions will also be cleared. However, the cache for file transformations made using path parameters will persist, while any transformations that include query parameters will be purged.
Publishing or unpublishing a file version changes its URL.
When a file version transitions between the draft and published states, its URL will change accordingly. The URL changes because the ik-obj-version query parameter changes after the operation, and the old one is no longer valid. A file version's URL looks like this: https://ik.imagekit.io/your_imagekit_id/file.jpg?ik-obj-version=iAg8gxkqo_QUBwqNeQrJzuyce2XB7Gc4